While many physicians report frustration with EHRs, Michael Pfeffer, MD, took an interest in the technology — a decision that led him down a new career path. After earning his medical
Physician's story
Medical Economics: Patient record transparency and the impact on physicians
Many physicians are not comfortable sharing their progress notes with patients, concerned that they will take offense, be confused and add to the practice workload by calling or emailing with questions. But under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), physicians must share their notes with patients who ask. Some physicians have embraced this…
Inside CHIME: Making the Case for OpenNotes – One Organization’s Success Story
At the University of Colorado Health, C.T. Lin, M.D., has been a passionate advocate for empowering patients through information. He spent more than a decade building support for a program that gives patients access to their records, including clinical notes. C.T. Lin, M.D., readily admits to being a bit naïve when tried to convince a…
NextAvenue: Doctors Are Slowly Opening Their Notes to Patients
A new program called OpenNotes helps patients be more engaged Ever wondered what your doctor is saying about you in all of those typed or scribbled notes? You may be able to find out soon, if you can’t already. OpenNotes is a national movement encouraging physicians to share medical records and the observations they record…
PHYSICIANS PRACTICE: Physicians Sharing Notes with Patients is a Win-Win
Can sharing physician notes with patients have a positive effect on care? That is the basic question behind the OpenNotes movement, which sprung out of a three-city pilot program in Boston, Seattle, and rural Pennsylvania and has since gone on to give more than five million patients access to their medical records. Using a patient…
Journal of Participatory Medicine: How a Patient Was Motivated by Reading His Office Notes
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…
MEDPAGE TODAY: ‘No-Brainer’ to Share Notes With Patients
Discussing them with patients may enhance health outcomes Between 40% and 80% of what a healthcare provider tells patients is immediately forgotten, and half of what they do remember, they get wrong. “Those are two of the most depressing statistics I’ve ever heard,” said John Mafi, MD, a professor at the David Geffen School of…
EurekAlert: Doctors’ reminders help keep people more engaged in their health care
Research led by UCLA professor on ‘OpenNotes’ model finds that follow-up emails are critical to keeping patients in the know A study led by Dr. John Mafi, a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, has found that a simple note from a primary care doctor can be a critical way to…
MedScape – Patient-Generated Data: How’s a Doctor to Interpret It All?
Watch Eric J. Topol, MD; Cheryl Pegus, MD, MPH; Maurie Markman, MD, MS; Gregory R. Weidner, MD and Michael W. Smith, MD, MBA, CPT at Medscape’s Medicine 3.0: Precision Medicine and Patient Engagement. The event was held in September in New York City. During this portion of the town hall-style discussion, attendees asked questions of the expert…
HCI – The Results Are In: Recent OpenNotes Research Has Made Me a Believer
When I first started covering health IT three years ago, one of the things that interested me most was the OpenNotes movement, originally a 12-month pilot initiative which brought together 105 primary care doctors across three leading healthcare organizations—and more than 19,000 of their patients—to evaluate the impact on both patients and physicians of sharing…
