Boston, MA — May 19, 2026 — OpenNotes is proud to announce that its Executive Director, Dr. Catherine (Cait) M. DesRoches, has been appointed as the John F. Keane & Family Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The Keane Chair was established to advance a vision central to OpenNotes’ mission: improving healthcare through open, transparent communication among patients, families, and clinicians. Dr. DesRoches’ appointment reflects decades of scholarship and leadership dedicated to making health information more accessible, understandable, and useful for patients and care partners.
Dr. DesRoches is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of OpenNotes at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She also serves as Principal Investigator of the OpenNotes Lab, which designs, evaluates, and guides innovations in clinical documentation, patient engagement, and transparent health records. In addition, she leads the Keane OpenNotes Fellowship in Patient Engagement and Transparency at BIDMC.
Under Dr. DesRoches’ leadership, OpenNotes has evolved from an ambitious research initiative into a widely adopted standard of care. Research conducted by OpenNotes investigators and collaborators helped inform the national movement toward transparency in healthcare records, including implementation of the 21st Century Cures Act and the 2021 Information Blocking Rule, which expanded patients’ electronic access to their health information. OpenNotes research has demonstrated benefits ranging from improved patient understanding and medication adherence to increased engagement and trust in care.
A nationally recognized health services researcher, Dr. DesRoches has authored and co-authored influential publications in leading journals including Health Affairs, The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, JAMA Network Open, and Annals of Internal Medicine. Her work has explored clinician and patient experiences with open notes, patient safety, communication, and the ethical dimensions of health information transparency.
“Cait’s leadership has helped transform the way patients engage with their healthcare information,” said Eileen Reynolds, MD, Chief of the Division of General Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Richard A. and Florence Koplow – James L. Tullis Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Her work has advanced a future in which transparency, partnership, and trust are foundational to clinical care.”
Dr. DesRoches earned her Doctor of Public Health degree from Columbia University and has held faculty and research appointments at Harvard Medical School, Simmons College, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her honors include the Nursing Outlook Excellence in Practice Award and the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation’s Article of the Year in Professionalism in Practice.
In accepting the Keane Chair, Dr. DesRoches follows its inaugural holder, OpenNotes co-founder Tom Delbanco, MD, continuing a legacy of patient-centered innovation and scholarship.
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About OpenNotes
Based at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, OpenNotes is an academic lab studying, spreading, and teaching transparent communication between patients, care partners, and clinicians. Evidence shows that when patients and care partners have access to clinical notes—known as “open notes”—the quality and safety of care improve. Learn more at opennotes.org.
Except where otherwise noted, the content by OpenNotes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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