What to do when a patient wants to record a patient-physician interaction in the emergency department.

Recent technological advances allow for instantaneous high quality video and audio recordings with the touch of a button. In Canada, patient privacy is highly regulated by provincial legislation, although patients themselves have little in the way of laws or regulations to observe. Patients taking video recordings of their own medical care does not currently fall under any of the provincial privacy laws. With no such governance for the general public, patients generally have greater freedom to record a patient-physician interaction. Unfortunately, there are no official policies from the provincial physician colleges regarding how best to proceed in these circumstances. Therefore, the onus is on individual hospitals and emergency departments (EDs) to develop their own policy on video recordings. A policy should ideally cover possible recording devices, locations, staff involved, and mandate that a written consent form be included with the patient's chart. While every request should be considered individually, physicians should generally not feel compelled to agree to the patient recording the clinical encounter. Patients are legally allowed to record a patient-physician interaction without consent of their physician, because the patient can provide the "one-party consent" for the conversation to be recorded. Physicians should accept the possibility that they are being recorded at all times and should strive to communicate as clearly and effectively as possible. Physicians should strive to provide the same level of care that they would even if they were not being recorded, and not let it interfere with their clinical decision-making.