Changes in Clinician Attitudes Toward Sharing Visit Notes: Surveys Pre-and Post-Implementation

Background Clinician perceptions before and after inviting patients to read office notes (open notes) are unknown. Objective To describe changes in clinicians’ attitudes about sharing notes with patients. Design, Participants, and Main Measure Survey of outpatient primary and specialty care clinicians who were from a large group practice and had one or more patients who accessed notes. The main outcome was percent change (before vs. after implementation) in clinician perception that online visit notes are beneficial overall. Key Results Of the 563 invited clinicians, 400 (71%) took the baseline survey; 295 were eligible for a follow-up survey with 192 (65%) responding (119 primary care, 47 medical specialties, 26 surgical specialties). Before implementation, 29% agreed or somewhat agreed that visit notes online are beneficial overall, increasing to 71% following implementation ( p