By Jan Walker RN, MBA, Suzanne Leveille RN, PhD, and Melissa Anselmo, MPH If we truly want patients to engage with clinicians about their health and care, we need to provide them with full and easy access to records that traditionally have been off limits. OpenNotes is a national movement that encourages clinicians—including nurses—to invite patients…
News from OpenNotes
Geisinger Expands OpenNotes
More than 168,000 Geisinger Health System (GHS) patients have access to their doctors’ notes for the first time through the secure MyGeisinger online patient portal. Geisinger expanded OpenNotes in May 2013 due to the initiative’s overwhelming success. As of November 2013, the expansion of OpenNotes now includes more than 1,000 Geisinger clinicians, encompassing all of…
Interval Examination: Moving Toward OpenNotes
By Jan Walker, RN, MBA & Tom Delbanco, MD, MACP Despite periodic efforts over almost 5 decades, the idea of having patients review and contribute to their medical records has failed to take hold, even though such practice might engage patients more actively in maintaining their health and managing their care and might also improve…
The Health Care Blog: OpenNotes: Drilling Down to Assure a Healthy Evolution
As the instigators of the OpenNotes initiative, we are thrilled that OpenNotes is being adopted by the VA. Prompted by Dr. Kernisan’s thoughtful post , the ensuing lively discussion, and our experiment with 100 primary care physicians and 20,000 of their patients), we thought it useful to offer some observations drawing both on our experiences as clinicians and on…
VA OpenNotes & Expanded Blue Button
OpenNotes: Access, Action, & Attitudes
“We need to understand how to communicate better with patients. We have a new mandate.” – Mark Zeidel, MD, BIDMC On October 11, 2012, the OpenNotes team held a meeting to discuss the final results of our year-long OpenNotes study, and explore how to make shared visit notes a more routine part of patient…
AHRQ: Online Patient Access to Visit Notes Generates Positive Early Reviews
Innovation Snapshot Summary More than 100 primary care doctors and 20,000 patients at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, and Harborview Medical Center in Seattle participated in a 12-month demonstration project of OpenNotes ® , a program where doctors invite patients to access their notes detailing medical office visits via a…
Health Expectations: The urban underserved: attitudes towards gaining full access to electronic medical records.
As the use of electronic medical records (EMRs) spreads, health-care organizations are increasingly offering patients online access to their medical records. Studies evaluating patient attitudes towards viewing elements of their records through secure, electronic patient portals have generally not included medically underserved patients or those with HIV/AIDS. The goal of this study was to gain…
