AHRQ's Making Informed Consent an Informed Choice: Training Modules for Health Care Leaders and Professionals
Many individuals do not understand the benefits, harms, and risks of treatment, even after signing a consent form. This raises patient safety and liability concerns, and runs counter to person-centered care. AHRQ has developed two interactive training modules that teach clear, comprehensive, engaging communication strategies that hospitals and clinical teams can use to ensure that people understand the benefits, harms, and risks of their alternatives, including the option of not having any treatment. AHRQ has also developed an implementation guide to provide guidance for implementing the training modules using a quality improvement (QI) approach.
Modules Content
AHRQ's Making Informed Consent an Informed Choice: Training for Health Care Leaders addresses improvements that can be made on the hospital level. Health care leaders who take the 1.5 hour module will learn:
- The principles of informed consent.
- How to craft a clear and comprehensive informed consent policy.
- What to consider when establishing libraries of easy-to-understand informed consent forms and high quality decision aids.
- How to remove communication barriers.
- The importance of establishing efficient workflows.
AHRQ's Making Informed Consent an Informed Choice: Training for Health Care Professionals teaches a total of 10 strategies for communicating clearly, presenting choices, and helping individuals make an informed choice. Health care professionals who take the 1.5 hour module will learn:
- Clear communication strategies, including using health literacy universal precautions and removing language barriers.
- Strategies for presenting choices comprehensively, engaging patients and families, and explaining benefits, harms, and risks of all options.
The module must be run on a learning management system. AHRQ has created several documents that will let you view the module's content. These files are not the interactive training, which can only be taken on a learning management system.”
Download screenshots of the leaders module: Training for Health Care Leaders (PDF, 10.5 MB).
Download screenshots of the health care professional module: Training for Health Care Professionals (PDF, 7 MB).
Download the audio script of the leaders module: HTML (PDF, 152 KB).
Download the audio script of the health care professional module: HTML (PDF, 185 KB).
To obtain a PowerPoint slide deck of either module, consisting of screen shots of the module and the audio script in the Notes section of each slide, email your request to: healthliteracy@ahrq.hhs.gov
How to Obtain the Modules
AHRQ makes the modules available to facilities that want to offer the trainings on their learning management systems. AHRQ does not offer the training to individuals. Facilities wanting to run the modules on their facility’s learning management system should email: healthliteracy@ahrq.hhs.gov.
Implementation Guide
Implementation Guide for AHRQ's Making Informed Consent an Informed Choice Training Modules is a companion to the training modules. It provides guidance for implementing the training modules using a quality improvement approach. This guide offers ideas and suggestions for overcoming challenges to getting staff to take the modules and for putting the recommended improvement strategies into practice smoothly. The guidance is based on the implementation experiences of four hospitals that participated in a pilot test of the training modules, and on the experiences of other hospitals implementing quality improvements.
Access the implementation guide as a Web page or PDF [919 KB].
