HEALTH CARE DELIVERY Perspectives
by Dave deBronkart and Jan Walker, RN, MBA Society for Participatory Medicine, Nashua, NH; and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
We congratulate Martin [1] on his thoughtful description of how he has opened clinical notes to his patients. We write in response from two perspectives. One of us (D.deB.) is a patient who has become active in the world of patient engagement, [2] a switch in careers triggered by widely metastatic renal carcinoma, now in remission for several years thanks to superb care by physicians and nurses in primary care and oncology. The second author (J.W.) is one of the leaders of the OpenNotes initiative [3] and a health services researcher, with a background in nursing. We touch first on several points that draw on a growing national experience with fully transparent medical records and then offer the perspective of a patient and consumer advocate.
National Movement Toward Transparency
Transparency is coming to medicine. Providers routinely make test results, medication lists, and other parts of the medical record securely available to patients online. Now, after a 2012 study in primary care, offering the same access to clinicians’ notes is catching on [4].
Read Dave deBronkart‘s and Jan Walker‘s full article here!
