A Note From the Director: February 2019
As we begin 2019, we are glad to report that more than 36 million Americans can access their visit notes through patient portals. But that’s only 10% of the U.S. population. It does look as if “rules” that are emerging from the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act passed two years ago will help stimulate further spread aggressively, but the fact is that simply “turning on” note sharing does not mean that patients can find, read, and benefit from their notes easily. So we are focusing increasingly on finding ways to implement OpenNotes more effectively. Only then can a large number of patients in a given practice access and benefit from note-sharing. Read more >>
In New York State, Rochester is First to Implement OpenNotes Citywide
In a step toward greater transparency in health care, two Rochester, New York, health systems are collaborating to implement OpenNotes throughout their community. Working together the University of Rochester (UR) Medicine and the Rochester Regional Health systems are offering hundreds of thousands of people in their city fast, secure online access to the office visit notes written by their healthcare providers.
The joint initiative that was stimulated by a grant, “Spreading OpenNotes in New York State,” from the New York State Health Foundation… Read more >>
OpenNotes Leaders to Present at SXSW Interactive
Executive Director Cait DesRoches, DrPH, and Senior Strategist Liz Salmi will present at the 22nd Annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Conference in Austin, TX, on Saturday, March 9, 2019.
For the first time, OpenNotes will be featured as part of the Health & MedTech track. Notable personalities such as Michael Pollan, Maria Shriver and Edward Ellison of The Permanente Federation will also be featured in this track. Read more >>
Trend Report: Modernizing Access to Health Information
Here are a few things that have piqued our interest recently regarding the need to modernize patient access to health data:
Politico: ASSOCIATIONS CALL FOR PATIENT ACCESS OVERHAUL
Ultimately, patients are an “army of fact checkers” — but need to have clear access in the first place; many patients don’t realize which specific data is covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and which isn’t. Read more >>
Open Dialogue on Patient Safety with Sigall Bell
We sat down with Sigall Bell, MD, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, to learn why she thinks sharing notes with patients is a critical safety intervention. Dr. Bell leads the OpenNotes Patient Safety Initiative, a multi-site study examining relationships among OpenNotes and safety outcomes.
How did you get involved with OpenNotes? Moving to OpenNotes was a natural segue from my earlier work on medical error disclosure. Read more >>
OTHER NEWS
Sign up for our next Grand Rounds Webinar: Sharing Mental Health Notes.
Read our white paper: Improving Access to Notes on Patient Portals.
What we’re reading this week: “Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Patients Perceptions of the Patient Portal Experience with OpenNotes.”
Check out this editorial from Liz Salmi and Cait DesRoches, Harnessing the Consumer Movement.
Find out which health systems have started sharing notes!
