La bi-direzionalità funzionale tra processo di consenso informato e mediazione sanitaria.

Informed consent in the hospital as in any other healthcare setting is - before anything else - a process of communication and relationship which must involve the patient in a decision directly affecting his/her health. In this article, we focus our attention on the bi-directionality existing among an informed consent process and the instrument of alternative dispute resolution constituted by mediation applied to healthcare conflicts. The link between the two legal institutions is bidirectional because informed consent is a fundamental premise of a good mediation and mediation - in turn - can be an important stimulus to continuously improve the process of informed consent. This bi-directionality for both legal institutions is fueled by the element of "trust". While trust in informed consent is the result of a continuous dialogue and listening between the doctor, the staff and the patient, in mediation it represents the crucial element to be renovated. Therefore, mediation in healthcare is an effective tool for managing conflicts to the extent that goes to latch on to a real and previous communicative relationship that actually materialized between the parties around the relationship of care. The emotional reality of the patient and his family - as well as that one regarding health professionals themselves - can emerge in an effective way during mediation, through the co-presence of the parties in a facilitated dialogue. This same reality can motivate health professionals to acquire a thorough and in-depth training on the values, techniques and tools necessary for the realization of a genuine process-based informed consent within an effective doctor-patient communication. All this can and must be done - in an organization sensitive to these issues - according to a virtuous cycle that feeds on itself and creates a renewed wellness for physicians as well as for patients in their inseparable relationship of care.