May 8, 2013, 8:00 AM, Posted by
Steve Downs
“Today, Geisinger Health System, one of the nation’s premier health systems, is taking an important step to expand OpenNotes. We hope other systems follow Geisinger’s lead to share doctors’ notes with patients, giving them information they can use to participate more meaningfully in their care." – Steve Downs
This excerpted post by Geisinger CEO Glenn Steele, MD, first appeared in October 2012, when results from the OpenNotes pilot were released. Geisinger was one of three health systems that participated in the study.
…As a health system CEO who also is a doctor, I believe it is an ethical imperative that our patients at Geisinger know everything that we know about them. And, I think it’s a logical imperative that if we can open up our medical visit notes to our patients, we’ll find out what they understand and what they don’t, so we can answer questions and work as partners to chart a path to better health.
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Apr 16, 2013, 3:15 PM, Posted by
Pioneer Blog Team
Earlier this year, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) embraced OpenNotes, enabling more than 1 million veterans who currently have access to the VA personal health record to view or download their own medical notes along with their health record information via the My HealtheVet Blue Button. In a recently published study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR), the VA's Susan Woods, MD, MPH, a longtime champion of open access and transparency, examined patients’ views and experiences with reading their health records, including clinical notes. The study is the first qualitative look at VA patients’ experiences viewing electronic records that included clinical notes and lab test results. Woods and her colleagues showed that viewing records and notes appeared to empower patients and increase their involvement in their own care but Woods says new communication skills will be needed to optimize the user experience.
In a recent interview, Woods discussed the power of open medical notes for patients and clinicians.
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Jan 4, 2013, 12:36 PM, Posted by
Pioneer Blog Team
By Jan Walker, RN, MBA, and Suzanne Leveille, RN, PhD, of OpenNotes
This is cross-posted from ADVANCE Perspective: Nurses
As nurses, we've always been focused on the patient. Teaching patients about their health and advocating for patients are both incredibly important parts of the job. That's why we got involved with OpenNotes-an initiative that invites patients to review the visit notes written by their doctors, nurses, or other clinicians.
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Dec 27, 2012, 11:45 AM, Posted by
Brian C. Quinn
As New Year’s Eve approaches, let’s take a look at a few of Pioneering Ideas’ greatest hits of 2012 one last time.
We rang in 2012 with a post about an idea Steve Downs called simple and dangerous—OpenNotes, an experiment that has enabled patients to read their doctors’ medical notes. We believe OpenNotes has the potential to transform the way patients engage with health care professionals—and take charge of their health.
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Dec 3, 2012, 10:55 AM, Posted by
Pioneer Blog Team
Over the past seven years, Project HealthDesign supported 14 dedicated research teams in devising fascinating ways to use mobile technology to broaden the patient-provider dialogue and empower patients to manage their health outside of the clinical setting.
In this “tell us your story” feature, National Program Director Patricia Flatley Brennan discusses how through grantees’ work and collaboration, they came to the simple but powerful conclusion that some of the richest and most essential information about people’s health isn’t found at a clinic or hospital: it’s found in their personal attention to the details of their own lives.
