Increasing Transparency, Activating Patients: The Case For Open Medical Notes

A group of health leaders, consumer advocates, and medical professionals are gathering in Washington, D.C., today to advance a simple idea that I see as transformational—having doctors make medical notes available to their patients so they can become more engaged in their care. 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.

The idea of open medical notes is not just an interesting theory. Geisinger just participated in a year-long study called OpenNotes with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and Harborview Medical Center in Seattle in which more than 100 primary care doctors invited more than 13,000 patients to see their doctors’ notes. The evidence, published last week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, makes clear that open notes is something patients want, something they use, and something that doesn’t unduly burden doctors. In fact, it also is something that could lead to better care and potentially could save health care dollars—as many as 70 percent of patients said that having access to their own visit notes prompted them to adhere to the medications their doctors prescribed.