If patients can access doctors' notes electronically, healthcare safety and quality will improve, based on a study in the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, according to an article on iHealthBeat. Created in 2010, OpenNotes initially included 100 primary care physicians and 25,000 patients.
Here are six notes:
1. Following the pilot of OpenNotes, 99 percent of participants opted to continue using OpenNotes.
2. Department of Veteran Affairs hospitals started using OpenNotes in 2013, and nine more health organizations in Oregon and Washington started using the notes in 2014.
3. Now, 5 million people use OpenNotes.
4. Researchers looked at five years' of survey data about OpenNotes, and found that users believed the tool helped them spot errors, remember more from appointments and remember to take medication.
5. Conversely, physicians had more concerns about the tool, like the definition of mistakes, how patients would report mistakes and whether the notes would become more unclear.
6. Researchers are now conducting the OpenNotes Patient Safety Initiative to understand how the tool affects communication, medical errors and safety.
