Introduction: Patients visiting a physician often have difficulty remembering everything the doctor told them during their consultation. Over half of all information presented is forgotten within hours or days. The goal of this study was to review the experience of multiple physicians at a neurosurgical institution with the use of a personalized video recording system to improve doctor-patient communication and provide a new tool to help patients retain the medical information presented to them.

Methods: Personalized video recordings were offered to patients of six neurosurgeons between 2009 and November 2013. Patients were given the opportunity to have their consultation recorded and uploaded to a secure website, then given access to the video to watch and listen to again at home. The authors collected surveys of patients' experiences with their videos and their ability to remember the information discussed during their visit.

Results: 1,163 videos were recorded between November 2009 and November 2013, representing 16.6% of total patients seen and 39.9% of total first-time visits. 410 of these patients were sent an electronic survey to ask about their impression of the service. 165 responses were collected (40.2%). 91% of respondents watched their video at least once an average of 2.2 times, and 64.24% shared their video with another person. 50.3% of respondents felt more at ease, 35.4% less anxious, and 65.8% could remember more of their doctor's instructions after watching their video. Additionally, 18.5% of total comments to the survey were regarding patients remembering more of their visit.

Conclusions: Patients who cannot or do not remember their doctor's instructions are at risk of not adhering to those instructions, which can greatly impact quality of care and have adverse consequences. Video recording doctor-patient conversations can help patients to better follow all instructions and potentially improve their overall physical health following surgery.

Patient Care: The use of video, as opposed to simple note-taking or just audio recording, allows patients to not only have access to the words that the physician is saying, but also the visual information regarding their medical imaging, the use of models or other anatomical representations, and the gestures and expressions of the physician when discussing information. This helps reduce anxiety and improve retention of information. The consequences of poor doctor-patient communication include non-adherence to medical advice (including medication instructions, post-operative care, and general continuing care) which can lead to greater rates of hospital readmissions after a surgical procedure and additional new or recurrent problems.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, participants should have a better understanding of: 1) the use of video technology in a clinical setting; 2) the usefulness of personalized video recording for patients; and 3) the usefulness of providing video recordings of the doctor-patient conversation to patients to review.

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