The OpenNotes initiative now reaches more than 5 million patients nationwide, according to new data and an infographic released just before the long Labor Day weekend. That covers participants in all Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals nationwide, as well as private organizations in 20 states.
OpenNotes started as a pilot in 2010 to give patients full access to progress notes from about 100 primary care physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and Geisinger Health System in central Pennsylvania. After a year, 99 percent of participating patients surveyed said they wanted access to continue, a finding documented in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“This started out as a research project, and now we think of it as a movement,” Janice Walker, a researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess, said at HIMSS15 in April.
Image: Open Notes
