Optimizing the Consent Process for Emergent Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

The Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA) defines informed consent (IC) as a voluntary process where important elements include details of the procedure, complications, and proposed alternatives. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) was the most common laparoscopic procedure cited in 423 medical-legal cases reported by CMPA in 2017, with 29% of cases citing issues in pre-operative care including inadequacy of the consent process. The investigators recently demonstrated that technology can help improve the IC process in an outpatient setting by conducting a prospective randomized controlled trial to examine the effects of adding a digital educational platform (DEP) module to a standard verbal consent (SVC) for an elective laparoscopic Roux-en-Y gastric bypass procedure. The investigators demonstrated a significant improvement in immediate post-consent knowledge of the risks, benefits and alternatives in patients who viewed the DEP module with equivalent patient satisfaction as compared to a SVC. With the proposed study the investigators plan to gather evidence to support implementing a digital education platform for emergent surgical procedures performed in an in-patient setting. The investigators propose to conduct a randomized controlled trial to explore the benefits of adding a DEP module to a SVC for patients presenting with acute cholecystitis requiring an emergent LC as an in-patient. Participants will be randomly allocated (1:1) to either a control group (SVC) or an intervention group (SVC + DEP). Primary outcome of interest will be immediate post-consent knowledge of the risks, benefits, alternatives and expected outcomes for a LC. Secondary outcomes will include satisfaction with the consent discussion and delayed retention of knowledge of the risks, benefits, alternatives and expected outcomes for a LC . The investigators hypothesize that completion of the DEP module in addition to SVC will result in superior immediate and delayed post-consent knowl