Author’s Note: This is an entirely true story (I actually referred to my office notes as I wrote it), with only the patient’s name changed. I saw Joe (not his real name), a 63 year-old retired corporate manager, for his annual wellness visit. Joe has been my patient for 20 years. He has always been…
patient's story
Journal of Oncology Practice: Open Visit Notes: A Patient’s Perspective and Expanding National Experience
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…
Medscape: What Patients Gain by Reading Their Doctor’s Notes
During a recent physical, Jeff Gordon’s doctor told him he may be pre-diabetic. It was a quick mention, mixed in with a review of blood pressure numbers, other vital statistics like his heart rate, height and weight, and details about his prescription for cholesterol medication. Normally, Gordon, 70, a food broker who lives in Washington,…
USA Today: Doctors’ note-sharing helps patients fight health issues
During a recent physical, Jeff Gordon’s doctor told him he may be pre-diabetic. It was a quick mention, mixed in with a review of blood pressure numbers, other vital statistics like his heart rate, height and weight, and details about his prescription for cholesterol medication. Normally, Gordon, 70, a food broker who lives in Washington,…
RWJF Google Hangout: Opening the Care Conversation through OpenNotes
During RWJF’s First Friday Hangout, we heard from a provider and a patient being honest about their experiences with OpenNotes. The conversation shouldn’t stop there. How can we as patients or providers continue to fight for greater health transparency? What is one thing your organization can do to make transparency in health care the norm…
e-patients.net – Evidence: “Patients value direct, independent access to their medical exams.” Who knew??
Healthcare providers who are tracking patient experience and patient satisfaction, take note: a new study reported yesterday in Science Daily provides evidence that we patients really like it when we can view the data you collected about us. Even us over-50 ones, who are widely believed to be technologically not up to the task. (Fans of patient autonomy, like…
The New York Times – Medical Records: Top Secret
MANY readers were shocked by my recent article about Peter Drier, who received a surprise bill of $117,000 from an out-of-network assistant surgeon who helped out during his back operation. But almost as surprising was how difficult it was during my reporting for Mr. Drier to extract his own records from the hospital. He wanted…
NPR Weekend Edition: When Patients Read What Their Doctors Write
The woman was sitting on a gurney in the emergency room, and I was facing her, typing. I had just written about her abdominal pain when she posed a question I’d never been asked before: “May I take a look at what you’re writing?” At the time, I was a fourth-year medical resident in Boston.…
The Economist: More patients are getting to read their doctors’ scribblings
A doctor who sees a child with an odd appearance might write “FLK” in his notes. Short for “funny-looking kid”, it is meant not as an insult, but as a reminder to watch for slow growth and mental retardation, which can accompany physical abnormalities. Later he may add “FLD”: funny-looking dads tend to have funnylooking…
BIDMC Health First blog: Being able to read my doctors’ notes has become an invaluable tool
by Eileen Hughes I was 20 years old when a new doctor I had just started seeing for my recent diagnosis of type 1 diabetes told me that his job was to help me learn more about diabetes, but ultimately it was my disease to manage. It was my choice to take insulin, to watch…
