OpenNotes initiative gains foothold in Northwest

More than one million patients in Oregon and Southwest Washington will have electronic access to provider notes in their EHRs as part of a collaboration between nine health systems and medical groups and We Can Do Better, a nonprofit committed to practicing open notes.

This marks the first time that OpenNotes has been embraced simultaneously throughout a region. The OpenNotes initiative—funded primarily by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—began with a one-year study that demonstrated positive results when clinician notes were offered to more than 13,000 patients cared for by 105 primary care doctors at Beth Israel in Boston, Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania and Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

In the recent expansion, the health providers that have committed to practicing open notes include Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Legacy Health, Oregon Health & Science University, Providence Medical Group Oregon, The Portland Clinic, The Vancouver Clinic, Portland VA Medical Center, OCHIN and Salem Health. Each group already practices open notes in some form, or intends to do so sometime in 2014 or 2015, according to a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation release.

“Local health providers have been very supportive of providing patients here in the Northwest with this increased level of transparency. We look forward to the day when all consumers will be able to access their providers’ notes,” said Amy Fellows, director of We Can Do Better, in a statement.