Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, MA, is an academic medical center affiliated with Harvard Medical School. It employs approximately 2,400 clinical staff, including 800 physicians and 1,200 registered nurses. BIDMC has 649 inpatient beds, and offers both hospital- and community-based ambulatory care. BIDMC developed its electronic medical record beginning in the 1980s and opened its patient portal, PatientSite, in 1999. Approximately 130,000 patients have PatientSite accounts.
BIDMC first opened notes to patients of 39 volunteering primary care physicians in 2010, as part of the initial OpenNotes demonstration project. On review of the study’s results, the hospital’s Clinical Operations Executive Committee voted to open all clinicians’ notes.
BIDMC’s patient portal, PatientSite, can be found here.
