OpenNotes Lab advisors bring expertise in patient advocacy, health information technology, entrepreneurship, and health policy and equity
BOSTON – April 11, 2024 – Following the launch of the OpenNotes Lab, the organization introduced today the first of its inaugural advisory board members. With domains ranging from patient advocacy to health information technology, entrepreneurship to health policy and equity, OpenNotes Lab advisors will help inform and shape strategic initiatives the organization addresses over the next two years.
“The OpenNotes Lab sits at the intersection of patients, notes, and AI,” said Catherine M. DesRoches, DrPH, Executive Director of OpenNotes at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) who is also an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Our inaugural advisory board will help us shape the work of the OpenNotes Lab, ensuring that our initiatives, interventions, and research are not only innovative but also deeply rooted in the needs and perspectives of patients.”
OpenNotes Lab advisors announced for 2024-2026 include:
Grace Cordovano, PhD, BCPA: Dr. Cordovano is a board certified patient advocate, founder of Enlightening Results, and co-Founder of Unblock Health. A recognized authority on Patient Administrative Burden (PAB), her policy work is far-reaching, contributing to the U.S. Core Data for Interoperability Taskforce, HITAC Interoperability Standards Work Group, HIMSS Public Policy Committee, the Sequoia Project’s Consumer Voices Workgroup, and the National Academy of Medicine’s AI Code of Conduct Project. Her advisory role at CancerX reflects her passion for equitable, affordable cancer care for all patients.
Alexandra Drane: Ms. Drane is co-founder and CEO of ARCHANGELS, a women-owned, omni-channel platform making change happen for unpaid caregivers across the nation. A serial entrepreneur, she co-founded Rebel Health, Eliza Corporation, Engage with Grace, and three other companies, all boot strapped. Her board roles include the Joint Commission Resources Board of Directors, RAND Social and Economic Policy Advisory Board, Vice Chair of the Trustee Advisory Board at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and she is a founding member of the Board of Directors of C-TAC. She also serves on Harvard Medical School’s Executive Council of the Division of Sleep Medicine, and the Entrepreneurs Council for The United States of Care. She believes communities are the frontline of health, that caregivers are our country’s greatest asset, and that we need to expand the definition of health to include life.
John D. Halamka, MD, MS: Dr. Halamka is president of the Mayo Clinic Platform, which brings together solution developers, data partners, and healthcare service providers dedicated to transforming healthcare. Trained in emergency medicine and medical informatics, Dr. Halamka has been developing and implementing healthcare information strategy and policy for more than 25 years. He serves as board chair for the Coalition for Health AI and has been an advisor to OpenNotes since 2015. Prior to his appointment at Mayo Clinic, he was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he worked with governments, academia, and industry worldwide.
Katie McCurdy: Ms. McCurdy is a Vermont-based designer, autoimmune patient and founder of Pictal Health—a company that helps complex patients tell their stories visually. By improving patient-doctor communication, Pictal aims to help patients be heard and seen, help providers make the best-informed decisions, and reduce errors and unnecessary spending. A seasoned UX designer and researcher, she also has 11 years of experience improving healthcare products and services for startups, nonprofits, a large academic medical center, and other healthcare organizations. She is passionate about designing better experiences for the patients and care partners who ‘use’ the healthcare system. As her dad always says, ‘when you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work.’
Tobi Olatunji, MD: Dr. Olatunji is a physician-turned-Machine Learning (ML) Scientist focused on clinical Natural Language Processing and global health. He founded Intron Health, the first real-time clinical speech recognition platform supporting 23 languages and 300+ accents spoken in developing countries, starting with LMICs across Africa. Over the past decade, Olatunji has worked as an ML Scientist at Amazon Web Services, Enlitic Inc, and Cambia Health Solutions, and consulted for various startups and healthcare institutions in the U.S. and across Africa.
Jorge A. Rodriguez, MD: Dr. Rodriguez is a clinician-investigator at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston. His research and passion lie in the meaningful intersection of medicine, social justice, and technology, with a focus on applying health technology to achieve health equity for patients with limited English proficiency and non-English language preference.
Alya Sulaiman, JD: As a partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP, Ms. Sulaiman helps clients navigate complex regulatory, privacy, and transactional matters, with a focus on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data strategy in digital health. As former legal counsel at Epic, she has substantial experience with product counseling and provides guidance during the conception, development, launch, and support of new digital health products and services.
Karl Eric Swanson, DO, MS: Dr. Swanson is an internal medicine physician, industrial data scientist, and clinical instructor at the University of California, San Francisco. As Co-Founder and Head of Data Science at Quench, Karl is at the bleeding edge of engineering compound artificial intelligence (AI) systems that enhance clinical workflows and patient care. His interest in OpenNotes drove many decisions he made along his career path, and today his work focuses on the intersection of machine learning and healthcare.Advisors to the OpenNotes Lab will serve two-year terms, with the option to serve an additional two years thereafter.
“Predictive analytics tools are primarily designed for clinicians and administrators, however they directly affect patient care… often without patient input,” said Dr. Swanson. “Generative AI and a new wave of healthcare applications not only influence patient care but must include direct patient interaction. It’s crucial we prioritize patient perspectives in the OpenNotes Lab.”
Dr. Cordovano echoed this sentiment, emphasizing, “Including the patient voice as a co-creator of the future of the healthcare technology landscape as it’s being shaped by AI is critical and non-negotiable.”
OpenNotes is recognized internationally for its longstanding commitment to promoting transparency in healthcare. Its newest effort–OpenNotes Lab–will explore novel approaches to investigating and designing interventions across the realms of clinical documentation, medical records, and patient safety and engagement. Prior to the enactment of the U.S. 21st Century Cures Act information blocking rule of 2021, OpenNotes helped lead a movement demonstrating that patients, care partners, and clinicians benefit from more transparent communication in health and care. Learn more about the OpenNotes Lab at opennotes.org/opennotes-lab.
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About OpenNotes
OpenNotes is an international movement spreading, studying, and teaching transparent communication among patients, families, and clinicians. When clinical notes are shared with patients, they are called ‘open notes.’ OpenNotes is motivated by evidence indicating that when health professionals offer patients and families ready access to clinical notes, the quality and safety of care improves. Primarily focused on research and education, OpenNotes is a not-for-profit and is based at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a major Harvard Medical School teaching hospital.
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