More than 5 million patients nationwide now have electronic access to their clinicians’ visit notes through an effort that allows them to read these medical notes online after an appointment.
The use of technology to better engage patients in their own care is at the heart of OpenNotes, according to John Mafi, M.D., an internal medicine fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where outpatient notes written by clinicians in primary care and all medicine subspecialties are being shared. These notes are available on a secure website where patients can manage their healthcare online.
Led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the results of an OpenNotes study that included more than 100 primary care physicians and 20,000 patients in three areas of the country was published in 2012 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
“Lots of patient enthusiasm, self-reported clinical benefits, and surprisingly not a lot of impact on primary care physician workflow,” were among the initial findings of the initiative Mafi told an audience earlier this week at the ONC Annual Meeting in Washington. He described OpenNotes as a “movement across the country” for better patient engagement and ultimately improved care.
Read Greg Slabodkin’s full article on the Health Data Management website!
