On Nov. 1, Columbia St. Mary’s Health System in Milwaukee became the first hospital in Wisconsin to implement OpenNotes. Beginning this month, some 1,100 multi-specialty doctors, nurse practitioners, and others who write visit notes will be sharing them with more than 300,000 patients via a secure online portal. Read the interview with Dr. Bruce McCarthy on…
Healthcare Transparency
Healthcare IT News: Lawyer to docs: Share notes with patients
by Diana Manos There is a growing trend of physicians sharing their written notes with patients, and that’s not such a bad idea, says attorney and consultant David Harlow, principal at The Harlow Group, LLC. Harlow, who has a healthcare blog, says doctors should have no concerns with showing their notes to patients. “The patient has…
Healthcare Informatics: Transparency: Effective Patient Engagement
by Gabriel Perna Industry leading CMIOs converged at the first ever Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems (AMDIS) Fall Symposium in Boston. One of the more interesting discussions at the event was centered on the usage and effectiveness of the OpenNotes initiative in engaging patients. The OpenNotes movement, for those who are unaware of…
JMIR: OpenNotes & Patient Privacy
By Ashley Gold As touted by some patient advocates and medical professionals who want to give patients access to their data and doctors’ notes, online access to medical records for patients has the potential to improve care. But there’s always potential privacy loss to worry about, and a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research on OpenNotes, an…
Boston Magazine: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Allows Online Access to Medical Notes
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…
Open Notes: A New Resource for Nurses
By Jan Walker RN, MBA, Suzanne Leveille RN, PhD, and Melissa Anselmo, MPH If we truly want patients to engage with clinicians about their health and care, we need to provide them with full and easy access to records that traditionally have been off limits. OpenNotes is a national movement that encourages clinicians—including nurses—to invite patients…
OpenNotes: Hospitalists’ challenge and opportunity
Dr. Henry Feldman and co-authors explore the implications of giving patients on the hospital wards real time access to notes. This article discusses opportunities to use shared visit notes to partner with patients and their caregivers, at the bedside and after discharge. An early view of, “OpenNotes: Hospitalists’ Challenge and Opportunity,” published in the Journal…
Globe 100 Innovators: Doctor’s notes, demystified
By Cindy Atoji Keene What is the doctor scribbling down in the chart? Many patients have probably wished they could sneak a peak into their medical records. Being able to do so is like a proverbial shot in the arm, said physician Tom Delbanco and Jan Walker, founders of OpenNotes at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.…
EHR Intelligence: EHR open notes: Should parents have access to teens’ PHI?
May 16, 2013 – For most people, adolescence is a time marked by struggle: the lure of adulthood leads to the fight for emancipation from a parent’s control, and from the condemnation or disappointment of authority figures while they explore their own emerging sense of self. Physicians have long been told to be neutral and objective when…
Kevin MD: Should OpenNotes become the standard of care?
By Leslie Kernisan, MD, MPH I support the fundamental tenets of OpenNotes and hope that all patients will have access to their notes within the next few years. To me the great overall value — both ethically and in terms of better health outcomes — of OpenNotes is a no-brainer. Read the full blog post…
