OpenNotes Project

The OpenNotes project is demonstrating and evaluating the impact of sharing encounter notes online between patients and their primary care physicians - a form of 'open access'. The effort is supported by grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Pioneer Portfolio, the Drane Family Fund, the Koplow Family Foundation, and the Katz Family Foundation.

As the general trend toward transparency accelerates, hospitals and health care systems with electronic medical records increasingly allow patients to view laboratory results, medication lists, and other parts of the medical record. However, though patients own their medical records, they rarely have easy access to notes written about them by doctors and others. OpenNotes is a simple, but potentially disruptive intervention that aims to transform the patient-clinician relationship as it furthers both transparency and the democratization of health care.