Will patients be more likely to seek a second or third opinion? New York Times

Will reading your doctor's notes lead to better health? USA Today

Can Patients Handle the Truth? TIME

These questions and others were posed following the release of OpenNotes’ findings about patient and doctor attitudes toward opening doctors’ medical notes to patients. The survey of nearly 38,000 patients and 173 primary care physicians revealed patients were enthusiastic about the prospect of reading their doctors’ notes while doctors were cautious.

Patients who signed up for the project, such as Linda Johnson, 63, a Harborview patient,  told The Seattle Times she found the notes helpful in recalling what she and her doctors had talked about and how she was supposed to follow up. "I have found, as I get older, I need more visits to the doctor, and there are more things we need to talk about…I find having them written down helps a lot." Patient Candice Wolk, a 39-year-old mother of twins, told the New York Times that reading her notes after a pregnancy check-up reminded her to follow-up with a dermatologist to have a dark spot on her back checked. 

Doctors enrolled in the project also shared their thoughts. David Ives, MD, an internist at Beth Israel Deaconess, told American Medical News he thinks OpenNotes is a rousing success, saying “The patients loved it, and it had absolutely no impact on me really at all. It was amazing how little impact it had.”

Bloggers chimed in too, including patient advocate Trisha Torrey who called on her readers to “continue to encourage your doctor to share your records –  to provide easy access to you” and Ted Eytan, who wrote that “here’s something in health care that most patients want to receive, but not all doctors want to provide.”

The media stories and blog posts such as those on The Health Care Blog, TIME’s Healthland Blog, NPR’s Shots Blog, and Vitals on MSNBC.com sparked conversations and debate and were shared widely through social networks.  You can join the conversation by commenting on these stories or tweeting @myopennotes or @pioneerrwjf.

Looking ahead, one thing is clear: the final results of OpenNotes, due later this year, are eagerly awaited and have the potential to spur real change in the way doctors share information with patients about their health and health care.

OpenNotes is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio. The survey results were published December 19, 2011, in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

At RWJF, we’re focused on solving the most intractable health and health care challenges in the United States, but we recognize that innovations come from all over the world and that many effective health solutions are emerging with the potential for immediate adaptation, replication and impact. That’s largely because, despite their differences, many countries throughout the world face a surprisingly similar set of health care challenges.

In today’s interconnected world, we have an important opportunity to learn from each other – especially when a new idea has the potential to make a difference in a big way. For example, the New York Times recently released a special section, “Small Fixes,” which focused on low-cost health care innovations to improve global health. The small fixes ranged from simple, self-adjusting eyeglasses for those who don’t have access to optometrists to the sophisticated, Gates-funded “postage stamp” paper to detect liver disease nearly instantaneously—the samples don’t have to be sent to a laboratory to be processed.

The innovation that most caught my interest in this article was one in Mozambique that organized patient groups to take turns picking up their medications, thereby forming strong social bonds, reducing stigma and increasing adherence to antiretroviral drugs. The organized patient groups also reduced the burden on health care workers while increasing patient engagement and self-management of care. Some consider this “small fix” a potential game changer for HIV care.

What’s striking about many of these solutions is that they highlight the universality of health problems faced throughout the world, such as lack of preventive care, provider shortages and rising health care costs. And, while most of the solutions are geared towards solving health problems outside of the United States, with some imagination, I believe many of these fixes could easily improve people’s lives in our country.

It’s this desire to accelerate change by tapping into unconventional thinking around the globe that led the Pioneer team to partner to launch the Innovations for Health: Solutions that Cross Borders competition with Ashoka Changemakers. We’re looking to find solutions to these universal health care issues, and are most interested in those that have potential to:

• Increase capacity and training for health care workers and providers;
• Scale low-cost interventions to increase access to medical, preventive, or dental care;
• Reduce barriers to health information and services;
• Provide high-quality care in non-traditional settings; and
• Engage patients directly in their care, particularly those managing chronic illnesses.

We’re thrilled to seek these global health care solutions and hope you’ll check out the competition, learn more about the three $10,000 prizes, and share the link with your network of pioneering thinkers. And why not submit an entry yourself, nominate an organization to compete, or comment on the submissions? We can’t wait to see what ideas you might have.