How to: shared decision making on the operating table

December 2022

Dear colleagues & friends,

Our work at OpenNotes is centered on the idea that open and transparent communication among patients, families, and their clinicians should be the gold standard of our healthcare system. A recent New England Journal of Medicine Perspective by OpenNotes Communications & Patient Initiatives Director Liz Salmi, exemplifies this ideal, describing her experience with true shared decision making, as she partnered with her neurosurgeon during an awake craniotomy. I encourage you to read this remarkable piece.

- Cait DesRoches, DrPH Executive Director, OpenNotes

Deciding On My Dimples, Liz Salmi in the New England Journal of Medicine

"For my part, I’m not only a patient, but also a patient advocate and scholar, part of a burgeoning movement in which patients are becoming patient-investigators. Open, transparent communication between clinicians and patients is a key focus of my work, and this moment captured something essential about my nontraditional journey toward academic medicine."

OpenNotes International News

We’ve been keeping a close eye on what is happening in England as the NHS moves to roll out transparent medical records. They're starting with GP practices nationwide. Drawing on what we have learned from open notes implementations in the US, we have published two articles in recent weeks in the British Medical Journal. They are designed to offer both counsel and reassurance to English doctors.

Adapting to transparent medical records: international experience with “open notes", BMJ, Blease C, McMillan B, Salmi L, Davidge G, Delbanco T.

US experience with transparent medical records should reassure doctors, BMJ, DesRoches C, Walker J, Delbanco T.

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