Wouter Leclercq

Future perspectives 191 12 FUTURE PERSPECTIVES This thesis attempted to supply information to improve a variety of aspects of perioperative patient counselling. Some hurdles for implementing theoretical and scientific knowledge on surgical informed consent (SIC) and postoperative counselling by e-health may seem easy to overcome. Other aspects however are harder to tackle and need more research in the future. Patient perspectives The evolution to empower a patient’s perspective in SIC is ongoing. In recent years, Shared Decision Making (SDM), Value Based Health Care (VHBC) and Patient Related Outcome Measures (PROM) have become important aspects of patient care. Future research should focus on implementing SDM, VHBC and PROM into the domain of SIC and post-operative recovery. This future research should focus on enhancing the awareness of patients for the topic “SIC” and the use of e-health incorporated with the knowledge from SDM, VBHC and quality guaranteed by PROM’s. In recent years, “Prehabilitation” and “Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS)” focus on the physical and mental preparation of patients before surgery and recovery after surgery. Research should also focus on preparation of the preceding phase: the SIC-process / the decision-making process. Future research should focus on how to prepare patients on the SIC process in order to help patients to discuss their situation with a care provider and to help them to make an informed decision. In the same way future research should focus on making e-tools more patient friendly. Developing optimal e-tools is a quest itself and more research is needed in the future with a focus on user-friendly personalised tools. Surgeon perspectives Optimizing the whole SIC process is only possible by increasing knowledge in SIC, SDM and post-operative recovery training for surgeons, physician-assistants and trainees. Future research should focus on methods to train surgeons and trainees in the field of SIC, and on the use of E-tools. At present however, such a course for surgical residents is lacking. Ideally, this should be developed, tested and preferably periodically evaluated to incorporate new insights in this fast developing field of patient education and counselling. Numerous questions arise. Which topics need training? What sort of initial training is required? Is repetitive training necessary? Do we need E-tool courses for surgeons? Daily practice perspectives Our daily practice is filled with guidelines, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and using Electronic Patient Files (EPD, electronic patient dossier). Future guidelines and SOP’s should have a specific focus on SIC, SDM and post-operative recovery counselling of patients. At