Another look at some convention

There is conventional wisdom all around us. Some times, such wisdom is held in such regard that no one really challenges it. Other times, people take a closer look and find some surprising results. Having worked on a patient health record before, I have personally heard about doctors' concerns about what might happen if patients actually saw their doctors' notes (gasp). While patients are generally entitled to a copy of their medical records under HIPAA, I've met doctors and administrators who have been less than thrilled about making that process easy.

Clinicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School ran a pilot program where primary care doctors actively shared their notes with their patients. The result? "Perhaps the most telling statistics of all: Not one of the 105 primary care doctors elected to stop providing access to notes after the experimental period ended." This is a remarkable departure from the general sentiment that I encountered earlier.

What might be next? Maybe the idea that doctors will never post prices? How about their publicly posting outcomes-based quality data? The path might be long, but we can still hope.