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,…
Tom Delbanco
The Healthcare Blog: Opening the Care Conversation Through Open Notes
It’s a memory aid. It’s truth serum. Using it can transform relationships forever. These may sound like come-ons for the type of product typically hawked on late-night television. But in fact, they’re some of the things people are saying about OpenNotes. OpenNotes isn’t a product, but an idea: That the notes doctors and other clinicians write…
Health IT Outcomes: OpenNotes Allows Patients To Access, Annotate Their EHR
An OpenNotes pilot study has shown allowing patients access to their EHR leads to better medication adherence and a sense of control over their health – now researchers plan to allow patients to add notes to their records as well. OpenNotes, a project designed to allow patients access to their EHR, is planning to take…
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.
HealthcareITNews – OpenNotes: ‘This is not a software package, this is a movement’
Tom Delbanco, MD, professor of general medicine and primary care at Harvard Medical School and former chief of general medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, is also co-director of the OpenNotes project, which gives patients access to the clinical notes written by their doctors and nurses. OpenNotes initially launched in 2010 as a pilot…
JMIR Publications: Patients Who Share Transparent Visit Notes With Others
ABSTRACT Background: 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 be. Objective: Our goal was to…
The Doctor is Listening: More on OpenNotes & Surprising Results of What Doctors Think
Recently, I wrote on NPR’s Shots Blog about the movement towards open medical records and the pioneering work of OpenNotes by Dr. Tom Delbanco and Jan Walker. Here’s an excellent RWJF podcast about why they decided getting health care providers to share their notes with patients, and where their work is headed next. Here’s a…
Clinical Innovation + Technology. Delbanco: OpenNotes is ‘contagious’
Since OpenNotes first was implemented in Boston, rural Pennsylvania and Seattle in 2010, the number of patients with access to their notes has swelled from 19,000 to nearly 4.5 million as more organizations join the movement, according to speakers at the 2014 AMDIS Fall Symposium. Read the full article on the Clinical Innovation +…
2014 RWJF Pioneering Ideas Podcast: What if? Shifting Perspectives to Change the World
RWJF’s Emmy Ganos talks to Tom Delbanco and Jan Walker of OpenNotes about the original spark that inspired them to create this national initiative, what they’ve learned as OpenNotes has spread to more and more hospitals and health systems, and where their pioneering work is heading next. Listen to the full podcast here!
KPCC: Should Therapists Give Their Patients Access to Mental Health Notes?
At Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, therapists are giving mental health patients access to therapy notes and charts, something patients commonly have access to in other fields. The doctors behind the project say that opening mental health records up to patients allows for a more participatory, active, and collaborative therapy practice. Critics argue…
