ORLANDO — The OpenNotes program that encourages providers to share their visit notes with patients is continuing to pick up steam, Homer Chin, MD, said here at the annual meeting of the
Geisinger Health System
HISTalk – OpenNotes: From Grassroots Effort to Nationwide Movement
We look at the evolution and future of OpenNotes — from the impact it has had on patient engagement, medication adherence, and physician workflows to the technological challenges of implementing a truly vendor-agnostic tool. By @JennHIStalk Six years ago, the notion that patients could have electronic access to their doctor’s notes was almost unheard of.…
Patients learning to read their doctors’ notes: the importance of reminders
Objective To examine whether patients invited to review their clinicians’ notes continue to access them and to assess the impact of reminders on whether patients continued to view notes.
Materials and methods We followed OpenNotes trial participants for 2 years at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Geisinger Health System (GHS). Electronic invitations alerting patients to signed notes stopped at GHS after year 1, creating a natural experiment to assess the impact of reminders. We used generalized linear models to measure whether notes were viewed within 30 days of availability.
HealthIT Outcomes: Open Notes Improves Medication Adherence
A pilot project testing the effectiveness of the Open Notes program found it had a positive effect on medication adherence. According to a two-year study conducted by Geisinger Health System, the Open Notes program increased medication adherence in 5 percent of those who used it. “Providing patients access to their doctors’ notes and reminding them…
U.S. News & World Report: Hospitals Are Moving (Slowly) to Electronic Medical Records
by Michael Schroeder Moving hospitals out of paper records and into seamless digital connectivity has been tougher than anyone but hard-core skeptics thought seven years ago, when the federal government began pouring billions of dollars into a push to make electronic medical records the universal standard. Computerization of health care data would quickly get patients’ health information where it needs to go, improving care…
Digital Doctor (Practice Economics) – OpenNotes: Transparency in health care
Transparency, until recently, was rarely associated with health care. Not anymore. For better and sometimes worse, there is a revolutionary movement toward transparency in all facets of health care: transparency of costs, outcomes, quality, service, and reputation. Full transparency has now come to medical records in the form of OpenNotes. This is a patient-centered initiative…
USA Today: Doctors’ note-sharing helps patients fight health issues
During a recent physical, Jeff Gordon’s doctor told him he may be pre-diabetic. It was a quick mention, mixed in with a review of blood pressure numbers, other vital statistics like his heart rate, height and weight, and details about his prescription for cholesterol medication. Normally, Gordon, 70, a food broker who lives in Washington,…
Modern Healthcare: Geisinger using technology to increase patient engagement, CEO says
Geisinger Health System has invested in health information technology innovations to transform itself from a fragmented, hospital-centric model to one that actively courts patient involvement and access, CEO Dr. Glenn Steele, Jr. said during an industry talk Thursday. The Danville, Pa.-based system has invested in three key areas: virtual visits; patient access to healthcare data;…
Today’s Hospitalist: Is it time to open up your notes?
Patients have the right under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to access their entire medical chart, including clinicians’ progress notes. But most hospitals and practices view that requirement as a burden and have set up time, cost and logistical barriers to prevent patients from seeing and obtaining copies of their own…
Partnering with Caregivers
by Jon Darer, MD, MPH, Chief Innovation Officer for the Division of Clinical Innovation for Geisinger Health System Recently, I attended a family caregiver summit in Washington, DC, sponsored by Kaiser Permanente, Booz Allen Hamilton, America’s Health Insurance Plans, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Intel-GE Care Innovations and UnitedHealthcare. The summit focused on an issue many of us…
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