FEBRUARY 2026

Advancing Open Notes in Mental Health Across Ontario


The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Canada’s largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital, released the 'Nothing About Me, Without Me (including My Health Record)' project in partnership with Steve O'Neill LICSW, BCD, JD. It includes patient testimonials about accessing their electronic health information and a toolkit for clinicians about how to effectively write notes for patient readers. Read more.


Podcast Episode: "Designing for Health: Anita Vanka, MD and Robert Stern, MD"


Phrases like "non-compliant" or "chief complaint" are still widely used in clinical documentation. So, how should medical trainees be writing their notes now that it is a shared space between clinicians and patients? In this episode, Craig Joseph, MD interviews Anita Vanka, MD and Robert Stern, MD, Ed.M on the future of patient-centered documentation.

Listen to the podcast.



"Why I Decided to Share All My Health Information with ChatGPT Health"


Liz Salmi shares insights from beta-testing OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Health. A longtime advocate for healthcare transparency, she has a history of sharing her own health records to explore cutting-edge tools, but urges others to think critically before doing the same. Read more. (open access 🔓)


WHAT WE'RE READING

Reliability of LLMs as Medical Assistants for the General Public: A Randomized Preregistered Study


A recent study, published in Nature Medicine, found that AI chatbots were no better than an internet search when being used by the general public for interpreting health information. Researchers noted that half of the time, mistakes in interpretation were made because of the participant's phrasing in the LLM prompt and misunderstanding which details were important to include. Read more. (open access 🔓)


Bean, AM, Payne, RE, Parsons, G. et al. Reliability of LLMs as medical assistants for the general public: a randomized preregistered study. Nat Med (2026).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-04074-y

Nature Medicine

Take It From a Doctor: It’s OK if Your Medical Advice Comes From A.I.


Adam Rodman, MD, MPH, FACP, a general internist and educator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, offers advice in the New York Times for people using LLM chatbots in order to understand their health. He advises honesty about AI use. He says AI can be a helpful tool to determine what is important for appointments but does not replace a medical visit. He also urges patients to beware of AI's agreeable nature and consider privacy issues. Read more. (paywalled 🔐 )

"Educating Medical Trainees About Patient-Centered Documentation in the Time of Open Notes"


Open notes can strengthen trust when written empathetically, or they might damage relationships when they contain judgmental language. An Annals of Family Medicine article calls on educators to train students to write clinical notes that are both accurate and respectful. Read more. (open access 🔓)


Fleming EA, Mathis NE, Larson MJ. Educating Medical Trainees About Patient-Centered Documentation in the Time of Open Notes. The Annals of Family Medicine. 2026;24(1):72-74. doi: https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.250068

"Stop Worrying, and Let AI Help Save Your Life"


In this New York Times article, Robert Wachter, MD (Chair of the Department of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco), explores the thoughtful integration of artificial intelligence in healthcare, and emphasizes the need for structured frameworks to evaluate its performance. Watcher argues that we must apply consistent standards—judging AI not by an unrealistic ideal, but in parallel with how we assess the current healthcare system. Read more. (paywalled 🔐 )

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