"Ensuring informed consent is properly obtained is a legal, ethical and professional requirement on the part of all treating health professionals and supports person-centred care."

- Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare

We obtain consent for many things in healthcare and must tailor our approach to the situation and individual. As with any other consent, when gaining consent to transcribe a consult we must consider what this tool can offer the patient, what concerns they might have about it, and what the risks to them may be.

Open discussions with our patients about the technology has surprised us greatly - when given room to freely choose, over 98% of patients express confident consent to Silknote being used. If you understand the technology at level suitable for the context and know that you can answer entry level questions about it, we think you will have the same experience. You don't have to know everything! If you don't know the answer to a question you get - we would be happy to help you answer it! We want everyone to have the knowledge they need to make informed choices.

As it may be a new experience for practitioners and patients alike, practitioners often find themselves first using transcription with patients who they have seen before and have established rapport with.

We feel that documented express consent should be standard for consult transcription.

"It is recommended that consent conversations are thoroughly documented, within a patient’s medical record. Problems might arise if a patient does not understand the potential uses of their health information. "

- RACGP, 'Inferred or express consent'