
Three organizations have had success with care coordination but with different approaches.
[…]
Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital: OpenNotes
Other providers have gone even further in coordinating care by involving the patients in the process. At Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, for example, the OB/GYN department has adopted the OpenNotes initiative, which allows patients to review their providers’ notes for accuracy.
“Within OB/GYN we think that’s incredibly valuable” for care coordination, Mary Herlihy, M.D., an OB/GYN at Beth Israel Deaconess, told FierceHealthcare in an exclusive interview, “because it helps to reinforce the care that we’re delivering.”
Moreover, Herlihy said, such a step would be “very easily adaptable across all care settings,” including larger systems, smaller providers and multidisciplinary groups. “Every discipline benefits from the patient seeing their record and having a better understanding of their health,” she said. Indeed, research shows that initiatives such as OpenNotes can do wonders for doctor-patient communication, which is particularly vital considering poor communication is one of the primary obstacles to effective care coordination.
Read Zack Budryk’s full article here.