OpenNotes is an international movement advocating fundamental change in the way visit notes are managed. We’re committed to spreading the availability of open visit notes and studying the effects. We believe that providing ready access to notes can empower patients, families, and caregivers to feel more in control of their healthcare decisions, and improve the quality and safety of care.
Based at Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Tom Delbanco, MD, and Jan Walker, RN, MBA, receive funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) for a first-of-its kind exploratory study inviting patients to read their medical notes online. The experiment involves 105 doctors at three diverse sites and 20,000 of their patients.
The highly positive results of the one-year study are published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Several health systems across the country make plans to implement OpenNotes.
CRICO/Risk Management Foundation of the Harvard Medical Institutions supports the OpenNotes Patient Safety Initiative. The goal is to examine how inviting patients to review their notes can make care safer.
OpenNotes receives a grant from the Commonwealth Fund of New York to develop OurNotes, an initiative that explores how patients might contribute to their own health records.
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Peterson Center on Healthcare, and the Cambia Foundation join RWJF to announce additional funding for OpenNotes. The prime goal: Expand access to 50 million patients by 2020.
