Patient Consent Process and Forms

For Patients

For Non-patients

How to include patients and staff in video, audio and photographs

Best Practice
- Protecting patient privacy is top priority
- Patients must sign a consent form.
  - There are several options for usage.
  - Make usage as broad as possible—we cannot predict where a video, audio or photograph will show up.
  - Tell the patient that we cannot control what is distributed via the internet/social media.
  - When using a patient’s photo in high-visibility scenarios (billboards, TV, online ads), please contact the patient for approval before distributing the image for use.
- Staff and faculty must provide verbal consent to be part of filming/audio.
- Critical members of the workforce must be made aware of the activity prior to arriving.
  - Physicians, nurse managers security
  - If in the operating room, who else needs to know? Anesthesiology? OR manager?
  - Courtesy cc to leadership [CEO, Chair, CNO, etc.]
  - Will I need signage explaining why we are filming?
- Always escort your film crew.
  - Those not familiar with filming should not be expected to make decisions about the filming.
  - The staff are there to do their job. It is our job to escort the vendor.
Working with approved vendors
- What is written into their contract? If they typically don’t work in healthcare there may be some issues.
- The vendor does not own the footage—they are filming on our behalf and we need to own all footage including outtakes, B roll, etc. unless there is prior approval in writing.
- It is our job to educate the vendor about PHI. If PHI is inadvertently caught on film, we need to ensure that the film is not used in any way.
- Can the vendor repurpose our footage? Only with written permission.
- Can we blur out information? We can blur out hospital numbers and names but not faces. If we inadvertently film a patient who hasn’t given permission, we should not use the footage unless the footage is de minimis. When in doubt, consult legal or compliance.
- Compliance recommends that moving forward that our video and photography vendors sign a Business Associate Agreement that indicates they are working on our behalf. https://depts.washington.edu/comply/docs/103f11_PtAuthVid.pdf