November 2023

Dr. Sigall Bell, Director of Patient Safety and Discovery at OpenNotes, was honored with the "Best Paper of the Year" award in the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Division of General Medicine. Her team's recent publication, Patient Identification of Diagnostic Safety Blindspots and Participation in “Good Catches” Through Shared Visit Notes, won in the category of Health Services, Policy, and Implementation Science. Over the past year, 333 papers were authored by Division Faculty. Papers selected for this honor were chosen by a committee of fellow BIDMC faculty members. Another OpenNotes paper, Perspectives of Patients About Immediate Access to Test Results Through an Online Patient Portal, was runner up in the same category.

Previous "Best Paper of the Year" Awardees at OpenNotes:

2021 Best Paper of the Year

Fernandez L, Fossa A, Zhiyong D, et al. Words Matter: What Do Patients Find Judgmental or Offensive in Outpatient Notes?. J Gen Intern Med (2021).

2019 Best Paper of the Year

DesRoches CM, Bell SK, Dong Z, Elmore JG, Fernandez L, Fitzgerald P. Liao JM, Payne TH, Delbanco T*, Walker J.* Patients managing medications and reading their visit notes: a survey of OpenNotes participants. Ann Intern Med. 2019; 171(1):69-71.

In the second installation of the Medscape Masters series, Aaron Goodman, MD, a hematologist at UC San Diego, and Mark Lewis, MD, director of gastrointestinal oncology at Intermountain Healthcare in Utah, came together to debate the topic of patients’ immediate access to cancer test results.

Watch the debate >>

Tips for Helping Patients Navigate Immediately-Available Test Results

Six practical tips on anticipatory guidance for when test results are immediately released to your patients, per the Cures Act.

Elise C. Carey, MD, FAAHPM, FACP

Associate Professor of Medicine, Mayo Clinic

Liz Salmi

Communications & Patient Initiatives Director, OpenNotes

• Healy M. The “Our Words Matter” Campaign to Reduce Stigma and Bias in Clinical Communication: A Case Report. CommonHealth. 2023; 4(1): 1-10.
• Matthews E, Zisman-Ilani Y. Open Notes Use in Psychiatry—The Need for Multilevel Efforts in Research and Practice. JAMA Psychiatry. 2023; 80(10): 977–978.
• Wolff J, DesRoches C, Amjad H, et al. Catalyzing dementia care through the learning health system and consumer health information technology. Alzheimer's Dement. 2023; 19: 2197–2207.
• Schiller P, Wong C, Golob A, et al. Internal Medicine Intern Preparedness to Document Clinical Encounters in the Era of Open Notes: a Needs Assessment Survey. Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2023; 38: 1556–1558.
• Khasawneh A, Kratzke I, Adapa K, et al. Effect of Notes' Access and Complexity on OpenNotes' Utility. Appl Clin Inform. 2022; 13(5): 1015-1023.
• Patient’s defamation suit over doctors’ notes could have ripple effects, Lund Report