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

OpenNotes After 7 Years: Patient Experiences With Ongoing Access to Their Clinicians’ Outpatient Visit Notes

Original Research — May 6, 2019

Following a 2010-2011 pilot intervention in which a limited sample of primary care doctors offered their patients secure Web-based portal access to their office visit notes, the participating sites expanded OpenNotes to nearly all clinicians in primary care, m ...

Impacts of a Web-Based Course on Mental Health Clinicians’ Attitudes and Communication Behaviors Related to Use of OpenNotes

Original Research — March 22, 2019

The OpenNotes initiative encourages health care systems to provide patients online access to clinical notes. Some individuals have expressed concerns about use of OpenNotes in mental health care. This study evaluated changes in mental health clinicians’ atti ...

Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Patients’ Perceptions of the Patient Portal Experience with OpenNotes

Original Research — January 8, 2019

This article analyzes patients' perceptions about the patient portal experience with access to primary care and specialist's notes and evaluates free-text comments as an improvement opportunity. ...

Harnessing the Consumer Movement

Editorial — November 27, 2018

In this issue, an American College of Physicians (ACP) position paper on Principles for Patient and Family Partnership in Care moves beyond longstanding rhetoric urging clinicians to become more “patient-centered” and calls for an aggressive turn toward tr ...

Impacts of a web-based educational program for veterans who read their mental health notes online

Original Research — November 21, 2018

This study evaluates whether a web-based educational program for patients who read their mental health notes online improves patient-clinician communication and increases patient activation. ...

OpenNotes and shared decision making: a growing practice in clinical transparency and how it can support patient-centered care

Original Research — September 25, 2018

Prior studies suggest inviting patients to read their visit notes (OpenNotes) has important benefits for patient engagement. We utilized survey data to investigate our hypothesis that patients who read more notes would report greater shared decision making (SD ...

The Importance of Visit Notes on Patient Portals for Engaging Less Educated or Nonwhite Patients: Survey Study.

Original Research — September 25, 2018

Background: OpenNotes, a national initiative to share clinicians’ visit notes with patients, can improve patient engagement, but effects on vulnerable populations are not known very well. Objective: Our aim is to examine the importance of visit notes to non ...

Who Reads Their Doctor’s Notes? Examining the Association between Preconceptions and Accessing Online Clinical Notes

Original Research — September 25, 2018

Patients who use online portals to review their clinicians’ notes may become more actively involved in their healthcare, but the healthcare industry knows little about factors that may facilitate or inhibit patients’ use of this new practice. ...

Perceptions of Primary Care Notes by Patients With Mental Health Diagnoses

Original Research — July 10, 2018

Abstract: There are concerns regarding whether patients with mental illness should be provided with access to their electronic medical records. This study compared perceptions of patients with (n = 400) and without (n = 2,134) a mental health diagnosis regardi ...

Tackling Ambulatory Safety Risks Through Patient Engagement: What 10,000 Patients and Families Say About Safety-Related Knowledge, Behaviors, and Attitudes After Reading Visit Notes

Original Research — May 23, 2018

Background: Ambulatory safety risks including delayed diagnoses or missed abnormal test results are difficult for clinicians to see, because they often occur in the space between visits. Experts advocate greater patient engagement to improve safety, but strate ...

Our Team

Tom is the John F. Keane & Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Un
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Catherine (Cait) is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a distin
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Carolyn is an award-winning broadcast journalist, former network television executive, an
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Sigall is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She leads the Open
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As a member of the OpenNotes team, Homer works with electronic health record (EHR) vendor
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Joe comes to OpenNotes from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, Department of Nursing
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Joann has been a core member of the OpenNotes team from its inception and remains an acti
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Rossana grew up in northern Italy in the city of Turin. Her fascination for science drew h
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Amy is involved in the vulnerable population and vendor strategies for furthering the spre
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Leonor is an educator and internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and As
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Trisha is the Director of Research Operations. She has worked in the Boston medical commu
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Alan holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Massachusetts Boston an
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Matt is a primary care doctor and medical director of quality and patient safety at Beth
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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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Kerry is a Partner Emeritus with the Kaiser’s Southern California Permanente Medical Gro
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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