Have you ever tried to get a look at your doctor’s notes about you? The “Open Notes” project is a movement pioneered and tested by three hospital systems, and deemed a great success when results of a two-year study were published in 2012. Today’s news: The Open Notes team just announced $10 million in funding from four foundations to spread Open Notes to patients nationwide.

I had the opportunity to attend an Open Notes presentation this fall, and on behalf of PVI, to contribute some thoughts subsequently about why access to one’s notes is great for patients (key to the PVI Principle of Information), and a win for patient-clinician partnership. It’s clear physicians aren’t all on board with the plan just announced; to those that are, we thank you and support you. PVI and all who represent patients can only hope this money will be used well and wisely to foster a whole new era of patient/clinician partnership, shared decision-making, patient accountability, enhanced safety, and improved health. 

Here’s the email message from Jan Walker and Tom Delbanco of the Open Notes Leadership team:

“We are thrilled to announce that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the Peterson Center on Healthcare, and the Cambia Health Foundation today jointly announced funding to help spread access to clinical notes to patients nationwide.

The results of the OpenNotes study involving 100 primary care doctors at BIDMC, Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, and Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, and 20,000 of their patients, were published three years ago in the Annals of Internal Medicine. We learned that inviting patients to read their notes not only helped them become more knowledgeable about their medical conditions and care, but also enhanced the clinician and patient relationship. Evidence is beginning to show that this kind of engagement has implications for improving the quality and costs of care, and that having a second set of eyes on the record may be an important way to improve patient safety.

In just a few years, OpenNotes has become a movement that has spread well beyond primary care to more than 5 million Americans. The joint gift of $10 million will support the OpenNotes team’s capacity to assist providers with adoption, to reach a wide range of consumers, and to evaluate the impact of the effort on quality and costs.

You have helped us pioneer this innovation. Thanks to your early support, we are now poised to make transparent notes a standard of care for patients nationwide. We look forward to continuing our work together.”