Anaesthesiologists should not delegate important aspects of their work to others, warns the HPCSA. The Medical and Dental Professions Board of the HPCSA is urging anaesthesiologists to do their own billing and to acquire informed consent from their patients.
The board believes anaesthesiologists are delegating too much responsibility to surgeons and patients when dealing with these matters. This is unacceptable. The board therefore emphasises that it is the responsibility of the anaesthesiologist to obtain informed consent and billing.
They were urged to brush up on their use of the guidelines for good practice in the healthcare professions:
- Provide detailed information regarding the patient’s condition, prognosis and treatment.
- Provide patients with easy and understandable information. The information must be given in a language that the patient understands and in a manner that takes into account the patient’s level of literacy, understanding, values and belief systems.
- Refrain from withholding from their patients any information, investigation, treatment or procedure the healthcare practitioner knows would be in the patient’s best interests.
- Apply the principle of informed consent as an on-going process.
- Allow patients access to their medical records.
Last Updated on 4 March 2015 by HPCSA Corporate Affairs