Institute:Office of National Coordinator (ONC) Workforce Training Curriculum
Component:The Culture of Health Care
Unit:Ethics and Professionalism
Lecture:Contemporary topics in medical ethics
Slide content:Examples of Exceptions to Informed Consent Requirement Patient lacks mental capacity Adult with severe developmental disability Adult has severe dementia Children usually lack legal capacity Implied or presumed consent in an emergency Patient is unconscious OR lacks capacity AND No surrogate decision-maker is available 7
Slide notes:If an adult doesnt have the ability to make informed decisions, that person is said to lack the mental capacity to give informed consent. Examples are an adult with a severe developmental disability and an adult with dementia. Typically, in these cases, another person is designated to make decisions for the patient. That person is called a surrogate decision-maker . A child might have the mental ability and understanding to make his or her own decisions, but the law may deny them that right. In that case, the child is said to lack legal capacity to give informed consent. Sometimes an emergency situation is an exception to the rule of getting informed consent before treatment. For example, if a patient is unconscious and a surrogate decision-maker is not available in a life-threatening situation, it may be determined that the patient has given implied consent to treatment. Furthermore, some experts say that the principle of beneficence [ beh - neff - fuh -sense] requires that treatment be provided under these circumstances. 7