Full List of 2019 Grant Recipients to Grow OpenNotes in Non-Hospital Settings Across New York State

Empowering health care consumers includes ensuring that they are engaged in shared decision-making with their health care providers and have the tools and information to control and actively participate in their own care.

Established in 2010, OpenNotes is an international movement to give patients access to the visit notes written by their doctors, nurses, or other clinicians. OpenNotes creates partnerships toward better health and health care by giving everyone on the medical team, including the patient, access to the same information. When patients have access to their own visit notes written by health care providers, they better remember what was discussed during the visit; feel more in control of their care; are more likely to take medications as prescribed; and can share notes with their caregivers.

Although more than 40 million Americans currently have access to their notes, uptake in New York State has been slow, which NYHealth has sought to address. Since 2016, NYHealth has supported efforts to spread OpenNotes throughout the State, including at geographically dispersed hospital systems. To ensure that all New Yorkers have access to their own health information, OpenNotes must reach all settings in which patients receive care, especially in underserved communities.

To further the spread or adoption of OpenNotes, NYHealth issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) in 2019, Growing OpenNotes Across New York State, to federally qualified health centers, multispecialty group practices, hospital-affiliated physician groups, independent physician practices, and other non-hospital health care settings across New York State. Through this RFP, NYHealth supported six health care organizations in implementing OpenNotes at their facilities.

Grant recipients were:

• BronxCare Health Integrated Services System Inc.
• Care For The Homeless
• Community Health Center of Richmond, Inc.
• GHVHS Medical Group, PC
• Institute for Family Health
• Upstate Family Health Center, Inc.

NYHealth also awarded a grant to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where the national OpenNotes program office is based, to provide technical assistance to the six organizations as they undertook their projects.