ArticleJAMIA open2021
Open notes sounds great, but will a provider's documentation change? An exploratory study of the effect of open notes on oncology documentation.
Article in JAMIA open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Impact of online patient access to clinical notes on quality of care: a systematic review.BMJ quality & safety · 2026Pooled it
- Patient Experiences of Disrespectful or Judgmental Language in Medical Records.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Article
- A multi-metric evaluation of readability in psychiatric discharge summaries.BioData mining · 2026Article
- Open Notes in Mental Health: A Scoping Review of Stakeholder Experiences and Implications for Clinical Practice.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Changes in Documentation After Implementing Open Notes in Mental Health Care: Pre-Post Mixed Methods Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Impact of Patient Online Record Access on Documentation: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Re-Envisioning Electronic Health Records to Optimize Patient-Centered Cancer Care, Quality, Surveillance, and Research.JCO oncology practice · 2025Article
- Advancing cancer care through digital access in the USA: a state-of-the-art review of patient portals in oncology.BMJ oncology · 2025Review
- Service Design and Evaluation of OpenNotes for Craniofacial Deformity Management in Patients and their Caregivers.Healthcare informatics research · 2024Article
- Changes in Documentation Due to Patient Access to Electronic Health Records: Protocol for a Scoping Review.JMIR research protocols · 2023Article
- Impact of the Immediate Release of Clinical Information Rules on Health Care Delivery to Patients With Cancer.JCO oncology practice · 2023Article
- Black and Latinx Primary Caregiver Considerations for Developing and Implementing a Machine Learning-Based Model for Detecting Child Abuse and Neglect With Implications for Racial Bias Reduction: Qualitative Interview Study With Primary Caregivers.JMIR formative research · 2023Article
- Affordance trajectories and the usefulness of online records access among older adults in Sweden.Digital healthArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThe effects of shared clinical notes on patients, care partners, and clinicians ("open notes") were first studied as a demonstration project in 2010. Since then, multiple studies have shown clinicians agree shared progress notes are beneficial to patients, and patients and care partners report benefits from reading notes. To determine if implementing open notes at a hematology/oncology practice changed providers' documentation style, we assessed the length and readability of clinicians' notes before and after open notes implementation at an academic medical center in Boston, MA, USA. MATERIALS AND
methodsWe analyzed 143 888 notes from 60 hematology/oncology clinicians before and after the open notes debut at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, from January 1, 2012 to September 1, 2016. We measured the providers' (medical doctor/nurse practitioner) documentation styles by analyzing character length, the number of addenda, note entry mode (dictated vs typed), and note readability. Measurements used 5 different readability formulas and were assessed on notes written
resultsAfter the introduction of open notes, the mean length of progress notes increased from 6174 characters to 6648 characters (
conclusionsAfter the implementation of open notes, progress notes and A&P sections became both longer and easier to read. This suggests clinician documenters may be responding to the perceived pressures of a transparent medical records environment.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.