Projects

Research in action

Together with patients, care partners, clinicians, and health systems, Open Notes Labs evaluates solutions and generates evidence that informs practice and policy.

Our collaborators

Sigall K. Bell, MD

Explore our projects

From caregiving and health equity to AI and diagnostic safety, our research examines how greater transparency can improve healthcare. Explore our funded projects below.

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Notes + Tests

Examining access to and interpretation of open notes and test results.

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Patient Safety

Investigating patient and clinician contributions to safer care.

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Artificial Intelligence

Evaluating patient and clinician use of AI.

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Care Partners

Studying care partner participation in patient care.

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Characterizing Engagement and Equity in Research (CHEER)

NOTES + TESTS | CARE PARTNERS

Through the CHEER study, researchers at the University of Colorado are evaluating and comparing community engagement methods to determine which approaches work best for different populations and settings. Open Notes Labs is focusing on older adults with limited digital health literacy, helping to generate evidence-based strategies that strengthen trust, increase participation in research, and improve access to health information.

Team: Catherine M. DesRoches, DrPH, Liz Salmi, AS, AA, Sarah Stern, MA, MS, Claudia Weitman, MS
Funder: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)
Project Partners: University of Colorado (PIs: Bethany Kwan and Matthew DeCamp)
Funding period: 2024-2026

The CHRONICLE Trial: Comparing Healthcare Visit Recording and Open Notes to Improve the Chronic Illness Care Experience for Older Adults

NOTES + TESTS | CARE PARTNERS

Patients can forget much of what they hear during a clinic visit, making it harder to manage their health. This is especially true for older adults with multiple health conditions. Written open notes can help, but they are not always easy to understand or widely used. Audio recordings may offer another option: 71% of patients who receive a recording listen to it, and 68% share it with a care partner. This project asks a simple question raised by patients: Should visit recordings become part of standard care?

Team: Catherine M. DesRoches, DrPH
Funder: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI)
Project Partners: Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, University of Texas Medical Branch
Funding period: 2022-2027

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HealthCoach: An LLM-Drive Chatbot to Help Patients Gain Actionable Insights from Their EHR Notes and Prepare for the Next Visit

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | NOTES + TESTS | PATIENT SAFETY

Despite federal requirements that patients have access to their electronic health information, language and literacy barriers continue to limit meaningful use of clinical notes for millions of Americans. This project is partnering with patients to co-design and test HealthCoach, an English- and Spanish-language AI chatbot that uses large language models to help patients understand and act on information in their notes, prepare for primary care visits, and guide the responsible integration of AI into patient care. By helping patients make sense of their open notes, recognize possible misunderstandings or errors, and identify questions to discuss with their care team, HealthCoach may also support patients as active partners in safer care.

Team: Sigall Bell, MD, Adam Rodman, MD, MPH
Funder: NIH/NLM: National Institute of Health National Library of Medicine 1R01LM014689-01A1
Project Partners: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Funding period: 2025-2029

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Improving Ambient Scribe-Generated Visit Summaries

NOTES + TESTS | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Patients often leave healthcare visits with questions or difficulty remembering everything that was discussed. This project evaluated AI-generated visit summaries created by Abridge to better understand how well they support patients after appointments. Findings from the study will help improve these summaries so they better meet the needs of diverse patient populations.

Team: Catherine M. DesRoches, DrPH, Amanda Norris, MDiv, MTS
Funder: Abridge AI, Inc
Project Partners: Abridge
Funding period: 2024-2025

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OurNotes for Care Partners

NOTES + TESTS | CARE PARTNERS

The goals of this project were to implement and evaluate OurNotes for Care Partners, an intervention using consumer facing health information technology to identify care partners in clinical settings and connect them to resources.  The implementation utilized patient portal pre-visit questionnaires, the ARCHANGELS Caregiver Intensity Index, and in-clinic materials.

Team: Catherine M. DesRoches, DrPH, Deb W. Wachenheim, MPP
Funder: Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation
Project Partners: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, ARCHANGELS, Beth Israel Lahey Health, Michigan Medicine
Funding period: 2021-2025

Strengthening Care Partner Support in Our Communities

NOTES + TESTS | CARE PARTNERS

The goal of this project is to develop and test innovations, including but not limited to health information technology innovations, aimed at identifying, engaging, and supporting care partners in clinical settings. Six organizations are developing,implementing, and evaluating care partner projects that they identify based on local community needs. The organizations meet quarterly as a learning collaborative to review progress.

Team: Catherine M. DesRoches, DrPH, Deb W. Wachenheim, MPP
Funder: Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation
Project Partners: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, ARCHANGELS, Chelsea Senior Center, ECMC (Erie County Medical Center), Michigan Medicine, Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Rochester Medical Center
Funding period: 2026-2028
Affiliated Learning Collaborative: Strengthening Care Partner Support in Our Communities

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Patient-Centered Evaluation Framework for AI Tools

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

As AI becomes increasingly integrated into healthcare, patients need a voice in how these tools are evaluated. This project engaged patients to identify their priorities, concerns, and expectations for AI and uses those insights to create a framework for evaluating whether AI tools are truly patient-centered.

Team: Catherine M. DesRoches, DrPH, Amanda Norris, MDiv, MTS, Deb W. Wachenheim, MPP
Funder: Patrick J. McGovern Foundation
Funding period: 2025-2026

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Safety2gether: Coupling Teaming Science with Patient Engagement and Health Information Transparency to Co-Produce Diagnostic Excellence

PATIENT SAFETY

Through the Safety2gether project, researchers are exploring how patients, care partners, interpreters, and clinicians work together to achieve accurate and timely diagnoses. Because the ambulatory diagnostic process unfolds across multiple visits, settings, and team members, maintaining a shared understanding of what is happening—and what comes next—can be challenging. Using a team science lens, Safety2gether is identifying the dynamic teaming behaviors between patients, families, care partners, and clinicians that support effective communication, trust-building, and collaboration at risk points in ambulatory diagnosis.The project will use these insights to develop practical tools that help patients and health care professionals actively contribute to safer, diagnosis and care.

Team: Sigall Bell, MD
Funder: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) 1R18HS029362-01
Project Partner: University of Texas Health Science Center
Funding period: 2022-2026

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Timely Results for Understanding Scans and Tests (TRUST)

NOTES + TESTS | ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

This project aims to reduce the anxiety, confusion, and misinformation that cancer patients may experience when receiving scan and test results electronically before speaking with a clinician. Working closely with patients, radiologists, and oncology clinicians, Open Notes Labs and our partners at UC Health and Vanderbilt will develop and evaluate AI-generated, patient-friendly summaries designed to make complex results easier to understand while exploring how these tools can be safely and effectively integrated into care.

Team: Catherine M. DesRoches, DrPH, Joe Dong, MS, Amanda Norris, MDiv, MTS, Liz Salmi, AS, AA, Chethan Sarabu, MD, Claudia Weitman, MS
Funder: Yosemite
Project Partners: University of Colorado, Vanderbilt University
Funding period: 2025-2027
Affiliated Learning Collaborative: Open Results

Our collaborators

Open Notes Labs works closely with a wide variety of patients, care partners, clinicians, and researchers in the U.S. and around the world.

Paul J. Barr PhD, MSc PH, BSc
Associate Professor, Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

Fabienne Bourgeois, MD
Associate Chief Medical Information Officer, Boston Children’s Hospital

Laura Dickman, LICSW
Program Leader, Patient & Family Engagement, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Robin T. Higashi, PhD
Assistant Professor, Peter O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health, UT Southwestern Medical Center

CT Lin, MD, FAMIA
Chief Medical Information Officer, UCHealth.
Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine

Betsy Lowe
Patient & Family Advisor, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Scott MacDonald, MD
Chief Medical Information Officer, UC Davis Health

Stephen (Steve) F. O’Neill, LICSW, BCD, JD
Faculty, Center of Bioethics, Harvard Medical School
Fmr Associate Director, Ethics Support Service, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Aditya S. Pawar, MD
Transplant Nephrologist, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Adam Rodman, MD
Director, AI Programs for the Carl J. Shapiro Center for Education and Research, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

S. Trent Rosenbloom, MD MPH
Vice Chair of Faculty Affairs & Professor of Biomedical Informatics Director, My Health at Vanderbilt Patient Portal

Liz Salmi, AS, AA
Patient advocate
Undergraduate student, University of California, Davis
Fmr Communications & Patient Initiatives Director, OpenNotes

Talya Salant
Patient & Family Advisor, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Chethan Sarabu, MD, FAAP, FAMIA
Clinical Assistant Professor at Weill Cornell Pediatrics
Director of Clinical Innovation for the Health Tech Hub at Cornell Tech

Bryan Steitz, PhD
Assistant Professor, Vanderbilt University

Robert Stern, MD, EdM
Instructor of Medicine, Co-Leader, Macy/Schmeidler Medical Student Open Notes Labs Educational Initiative, Harvard Medical School Hematologist, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Eric J. Thomas, MD, MPH
Professor of Medicine, McGovern Medical School at The University of Texas Health Science Center Houston

Robert Turer, MD
Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center

Anita Vanka, MD
Co-Leader, Macy/Schmeidler Medical Student Open Notes Labs Educational Initiative, Assistant Professor, Medicine at Harvard Medical School
Hospitalist & Internal Medicine Residency Program Director, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Jennifer L. Wolff, PhD
Eugene and Mildred Lipitz Professor of Health Policy & Management,
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health