Patients living with HIV/AIDS face large societal and medical challenges. Inviting patients to read their doctors’ visit notes via secure electronic portals may empower patients and improve health. We investigated whether utilization and perceptions about access to doctors’ notes differed among doctors and patients in an HIV/AIDS clinic versus primary care setting. We analyzed pre- and 1-year postintervention data from 99 doctors and 3819 patients. HIV clinic patients did not report differences in perceived risks and benefits compared to primary care clinic patients, however, they were more likely to share notes with friends (33% versus 9%, P = .002), other health professionals (24% versus 8%, P = .03), or another doctor (38% versus 9%, P < .0001). HIV clinic doctors were less likely than primary care doctors to change the level of candor in visit notes (P < .04). Our findings suggest that HIV clinic patients and doctors are ready to share visit notes online.
Delbanco, Tom
US experience with doctors and patients sharing clinical notes
The move to offer patients online access to their clinicians’ notes is accelerating and holds promise of supporting more truly collaborative relationships between patients and clinicians, say Jan Walker, Michael Meltsner, and Tom Delbanco
For decades clinicians have experimented with making medical records available to patients.1 2 3 4 5 6 Now electronic medical records and associated secure internet portals provide patients the opportunity to view test results, medications, and other selected parts of the medical record on line.7 But few patients are offered full access to their records; clinicians’ notes are rarely visible. After a demonstration project showed the acceptability of OpenNotes (www.myopennotes.org) in the US,8 several prominent healthcare providers decided to make clinicians’ notes available to patients online before further formal evaluation. We describe the OpenNotes movement in the US and how sharing notes with patients is spreading. We also underline the case for research to assess the long term effect of sharing notes and the potential to foster improved and truly collaborative care.
Patients Who Share Transparent Visit Notes With Others: Characteristics, Risks, and Benefits
Inviting patients to read their primary care visit notes may improve communication and help them engage more actively in their health care. Little is known about how patients will use the opportunity to share their visit notes with family members or caregivers, or what the benefits might b
Let’s Show Patients Their Mental Health Records
Should we health professionals encourage patients with mental illness to read their medical record notes? As electronic medical records and secure online portals proliferate, patients are gaining ready access not only to laboratory findings but also to clinicians’ notes. Primary care patients report that reading their doctors’ notes brings many benefits including greater control over their health care, and their doctors experience surprisingly few changes in workflow. While patients worry about electronic records and potential loss of privacy, they vote resoundingly for making their records more available to them and often to their families.
The Road toward Fully Transparent Medical Records
Patients who were given access to their physicians’ notes reported having better recall and understanding of their care plans, feeling more in control of their health care, and adhering better to medication regimens. Doctors reported little effect on their work lives.
Online Access to Doctors’ Notes: Patient Concerns About Privacy
Offering patients online access to medical records, including doctors’ visit notes, holds considerable potential to improve care. However, patients may worry about loss of privacy when accessing personal health information through Internet-based patient portals. The OpenNotes study provided patients at three US health care institutions with online access to their primary care doctors’ notes and then collected survey data about their experiences, including their concerns about privacy before and after participation in the intervention.
OpenNotes: Hospitalists’ challenge and opportunity
At a time of societal fascination both with transparency and the explosion of health information technologies, a growing number of hospitals are offering, or will soon offer patients and their family instantaneous access to their doctors’ and nurses’ notes. What will this new opportunity for patient engagement mean for the hospitalist? Today, state and federal government regulations either encourage or require healthcare providers to grant patients access to their clinical information. But despite the rules embedded in the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), patients often face time-consuming obstacles in their quest for access, and many providers view compliance as a burden. We suggest an alternative view: Over time, we anticipate that inviting patients to review their medical record will reduce risk, increase knowledge, foster active engagement, and help them take more control of their care. The OpenNotes trial provides clues as to how such practice will affect both patients and providers (1, 2). We anticipate that transparent records will stimulate hospitalists, PCPs, and other caregivers to improve communication throughout the patient’s hospital stay. OpenNotes offers a special opportunity for improving the patient experience after leaving the hospital as well. Open notes will be viewed by many as a disruptive change, and the best strategy for adapting will be to move proactively to create policies that establish clear guidelines, for which the authors offer some suggestions.
Interval Examination: Moving Toward Open Notes
Despite periodic efforts over almost 5 decades, the idea of having patients review and contribute to their medical records has failed to take hold, even though such practice might engage patients more actively in maintaining their health and managing their care and might also improve quality of care and patient safety. Contemporary trends toward increased transparency, accompanied by evolving health information technologies, provided an opportunity for us to conduct a study examining the effects on both patients and primary care physicians (PCPs) of inviting patients to read their doctors’ visit notes. Bolstered by encouraging findings from this study, and with the goal of informing those who might join in further inquiry, we outline in this “interval examination” challenges we are encountering and strategies we are employing as we explore wider implementation of this practice.
The urban underserved: attitudes towards gaining full access to electronic medical records
As the use of electronic medical records (EMRs) spreads, health-care organizations are increasingly offering patients online access to their medical records. Studies evaluating patient attitudes towards viewing elements of their records through secure, electronic patient portals have generally not included medically underserved patients or those with HIV/AIDS. The goal of this study was to gain insight into such patients’ attitudes towards online access to their medical records, including their doctors’ visit notes.
Inviting Patients to Read Their Doctors’ Notes: A Quasi-experimental Study and a Look Ahead
Electronic medical records and secure patient portals hold exciting potential for more active patient involvement in care and improved communication between patients and clinicians. These technologies facilitate a potentially disruptive innovation: Doctors can readily invite patients to read and share their visit notes and even contribute to the notes’ formulation. We conducted a quasi-experimental study, OpenNotes, in which more than 100 primary care physicians (PCPs) volunteered to invite more than 20 000 of their patients to review online the notes that the doctors wrote and signed after an office visit
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