This Conversation is Being Recorded: A Focus Group Study Exploring Cancer Patients’ Perspective on Routinely Audio-Recording Outpatient Visits

Abstract

Background: Patients facing a cancer diagnosis may decide to record the consultation with their physician to ensure the recall of healthcare information. In current practice, the initiative of audio-recording a consultation lies with the patient. To our knowledge, no hospital world-wide has the policy to offer routinely audio-recordings.Objective: This qualitative study outlines cancer patients’ perspective on the topic with the specific aim to inform a dedicated policy that safeguards patients’ needs, wishes and concerns regarding the making and storage of their audio-recorded doctor-patient conversations.Methods: We recruited Dutch patients from an online panel on cancer. In total, 23 patients with various stages in their cancer disease were interviewed in four focus group sessions. The audio-recorded sessions were transcribed ad verbatim, and a thematic analysis was used to identify important patterns in the data.Results: All (100%) patients found it difficult to remember information from their outpatient visit. Patients (87%) expressed the need for routinely audio-recording their healthcare consultations for storage of personalized information and later relistening the consultation. Patients (35%) expect that audio-recordings could allow a more smooth and efficient transfer of information between healthcare specialists . Patients (78%) stressed the need for a standard procedure, with special regards to explicit informed consent procedures and the assurance of the privacy and confidentiality of the recordings.Conclusions: Patients expect that routine recordings could offer informative and emotional support in trying times, empower patients to become equal partners in discussions about their healthcare, and enhance the patient-centeredness of services. There is a need for routinely offering audio-recordings of outpatient visits. These recordings should be stored and accessible available via the electronic health record.Practice Implications: This study show the added value of implementing the routine making of audio-recordings for offering and enhancing patient-centered care.

Note:
Funding declaration: This study is part of the project “We Record it For You” and financially supported by We Care, a fund raised by the Elisabeth Tweesteden Hospital (ETZ) and the Tilburg University (TiU), Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Conflict of Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval: This study received ethical clearance from the Ethical Committee of the Tilburg university, The Netherlands.

Keywords: audio-recordings, doctor-patient communication, patient education, Patient Activation, Patient-Centered Care