Our Mission

OpenNotes is an international movement 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.

Supported by philanthropies, OpenNotes does not sell software or other products. The OpenNotes team is headquartered in the Division of General Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a 501(c)3 organization and teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School in Boston.

History

Working to help patients take a more active role in their own health care.

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Research

Always learning more about the effects of open notes on patients and systems.

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Supporters

Collaborating with the best in the country to improve health care.

Meet Our Supporters

Team

We're dedicated to making open notes the new standard of care for all.

Meet Our Team

Our History At A Glance

Where the OpenNotes movement began, and where we’re heading.
See The Full Timeline

2009

OpenNotes Starts with Collaboration

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.

2012

A Major Milestone

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.

2013

Engaging Patients as Safety Partners

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.

2015

OpenNotes Looks to the Future with OurNotes

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.

2015

Moore, Peterson and Cambia Join RWJF

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.

Recent Publications & Research

Read All Our Research

Patients Evaluate Visit Notes Written by Their Clinicians: a Mixed Methods Investigation

July 17, 2020

Patients overwhelmingly report understanding their visit notes and usually find them accurate, with few disparities according to sociodemographic or health characteristics. They have many suggestions for improving their quality, and if they understand a note p ...

Frequency and Types of Patient-Reported Errors in Electronic Health Record Ambulatory Care Notes

June 11, 2020

As health information transparency increases, patients may perceive important errors in their visit notes, and inviting them to report mistakes that they believe are very serious may be associated with improved record accuracy and patient engagement in safety. ...

Covid-19 as Innovation Accelerator: Cogenerating Telemedicine Visit Notes with Patients

May 12, 2020

Over the past decade, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has been committed to sharing clinical notes with its patients. Now, as the Covid-19 pandemic is accelerating the adoption of telemedicine, the hospital’s primary care practice is implementing an ini ...

Care Partners and Patient Portals—Faulty Access, Threats to Privacy, and Ample Opportunity

Editorial — May 4, 2020

Care partners value having access to their loved one's information. The patient portal is a convenient way to access test results and clinical notes, communicate with health care practitioners, and link care partners to the clinical team, making it a powerful ...

Sharing Psychotherapy Notes with Patients: Therapists’ Attitudes and Experiences

April 1, 2020

Evidence suggests that the practice of sharing clinicians’ notes with patients via online patient portals may increase patient engagement and improve patient–clinician relationships while requiring little change in providers’ workflow. Authors examined c ...

The Views and Experiences of Clinicians Sharing Medical Record Notes With Patients

March 31, 2020

In this web-based survey study of 1628 clinicians, most viewed note sharing positively (74% agreed that it is a good idea and 74% viewed shared notes as useful for engaging patients in their care), and 37% of physicians surveyed reported spending more time in ...

Empowering patients and reducing inequities: is there potential in sharing clinical notes?

March 30, 2020

Patients who read their clinical notes via online patient portals (‘open notes’) report that doing so engages them actively in their care, improves their sense of control over their health and enhances safety. In several surveys, patients who are older, le ...

Dermatopathologists’ Experience With and Perceptions of Patient Online Access to Pathologic Test Result Reports

March 11, 2020

In this survey study of 160 dermatopathologists, 57% reported that they have been contacted by patients about their pathologic test result reports. ...

Embracing the new age of transparency: mental health patients reading their psychotherapy notes online

December 18, 2019

Our pilot findings indicate that most patients who read open therapy notes find them valuable for understanding and engaging in their mental health care, with minimal adverse effects. ...

Patients’ access to health records

Editorial — December 18, 2019

The international movement pushing to increase transparency by giving patients easy access to their health information parallels a broader shift in healthcare towards increased patient empowerment and participation. ...

Our Team

Tom is the John F. Keane & Family Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School (HMS
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Catherine (Cait) is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a distin
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Sigall is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She leads the Open
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Charlotte Blease PhD, is a Keane OpenNotes Scholar with a background in philosophy and int
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Joe comes to OpenNotes from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, Department of Nursing
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Leonor is an educator and internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and As
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Maria Hägglund PhD, is a Keane OpenNotes Scholar and a visiting Lecturer on Medicine at H
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Kendall received her B.A. in Psychology from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts
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As a member of the OpenNotes team, Suzanne is examining new approaches to patient access t
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Paola serves as the Administrative Director at OpenNotes in the Division of General Medici
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Long is a member of the research faculty in the Department of Medicine at the Beth Israel
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Amanda is the Salesforce Administrator for OpenNotes, and a member of the Communications t
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Steve is the Social Work Manager for Psychiatry, Primary Care, Pain Management and Infect
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John played a leadership role in starting the Northwest OpenNotes Consortium and he now l
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Liz Salmi is Senior Strategist of Research Dissemination for OpenNotes. In this role, Liz
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As the assistant director of the OpenNotes dissemination team, Deborah helps to spread the
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Our Supporters

From individual patient advocates to major national philanthropies, people and organizations around the country are rallying behind OpenNotes.
Meet Our Supporters