By Jenni Whalen
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) patients will now have online access to the notes that doctors and nurses make about them during care, the hospital announced last week.
Through a program called OpenNotes, online records are now available for all primary care, orthopedics, and rehabilitation services patients from BIDMC. The medical center plans to have all outpatient notes from all specialties available by the end of 2013, according to the announcement. That means that they will have records available to almost a quarter of a million patients. Inpatient notes will be available in 2014.
“I think it definitely helps patients take more ownership of their care and be more engaged in what’s happening,” Dr. Kim Ariyabuddhiphongs, a primary care physician who participated in the study, said in the announcement. “This is a clear step towards, ‘this is about you, this is what we’re doing, and this is why it’s important’ and it just brings the patient into that whole discussion just a little bit more.”
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