Benefits and Risks of Sharing Notes in Mental/Behavioral Health

Steve O’Neill, LICSW, BCD, JD, Social Work Manager for Psychiatry and Primary Care, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and OpenNotes Behavioral Health Specialist. OpenNotes is a movement aimed at making healthcare provider’s notes directly available online to patients through a secure portal. Four years ago, nearly all of the outpatient clinical social workers and psychiatry staff at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center opened up their therapy notes to our behavioral/mental health patients. Many viewed that OpenNotes might ruin psychotherapy, increase workload burden and have a chilling effect upon patient care. What have we learned since, both at BIDMC as well as the 17+ other healthcare systems across the country who have opened up therapy notes? What are the benefits as well as the drawbacks? What are we learning from our patients? And how do mental health clinicians now feel about OpenNotes within patient care? This session focuses on addressing these issues, including our research findings, and the implications going forward for practice.