Photo Friday: Patient access edition – @MyOpenNotes visits My Health Manager

This week’s photograph is of Tom Delbanco, MD, Jan Walker, RN, MBA, and myself, at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Total Health ( @kptotalhealth ). We’re holding up our hands because Tom, who also makes films, noticed that all of the speakers in the video around the Center were gesticulating with their hands. When I told him that this was the direction we were all given when we did the blue screen work, he suggested this pose as a bit of a parody.

I had the honor of both meeting Tom and Jan, and giving them a tour of the Center as part of their visit to Washington, DC, to promote the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation OpenNotes project ( @myopennotes ). OpenNotes is my favorite RWJF project (Aligning Forces for Quality ( @aligningforces ) is #2 – they brought Kait Roe ( @kaitbr ) into our worlds after all ). Why? Because it’s answering, in a rigorous way, a question, a desire, a dream, of a generation of physicians and patients about what happens when patients see everything in their medical chart, on demand.

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@myopennotes is studying - physician notes being on a list of what patients can see.' on Flickr.com" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/22526649@N03/6881170256">What @myopennotes is studying – physician notes being on a list of what patients can see.

OpenNotes hopes to publish the results of its study in the near future (I’ve previously written about it here). Tom and Jan are embargoed from discussing the results as part of publishing rules, so I didn’t ask what they’ve found (and they didn’t tell me).

What they did tell me is that this work is their most important passion, which is a big statement if you consider the breadth of their careers.

What do I hope this project reveals? Simple answer – the truth, as experienced by the patients and their doctors.

From the way this study has been designed to the talent of the researchers who are doing the work, I already know that my hope will be fulfilled.

Thank you, OpenNotes patients, nurses, doctors, and staff, and we hope to hear from you soon! 🙂

Ted Eytan, MD