Cait and I dive into the pros and cons of OpenNotes. Imagine that as a patient you could access the transcripts from all your clinically relevant moments with a physician or therapist freely and at any moment. It is possible that patients would engage much more with their health, not only prepare for next visit at the doctors office but also double check on their previous conversation with the clinical staff. In Cait's experience, working with over 200 health institutions in the US, OpenNotes brought a lot of benefits on both sides. Meanwhile, some people remain sceptical about sharing patient's notes, afraid of increasing the administrative efforts or dealing with obnoxious patients. Time and practice will show, if complete transparency is the right way, how to change patients' engagement with health services for the best.
Guest: Cathrine DesRoches, PhD in Public Health, Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, executive Director of OpenNotes