An upper Midwest health system is giving patients access to physician notes.

Minneapolis-based Allina Health, which operates 15 hospitals throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin, has deployed OpenNotes, a web tool that enables patients to see all doctors notes through a secure web link that is a part of a digital healthcare portal.

The web feature provides patients online anywhere, anytime access to doctors’ notes. Patients already were able to see physician instructions, next steps, prescriptions and test orders online, says Allina Health senior vice president Dr. Tim Sielaff.

About 500,000 Allina Health patients can now review their doctors’ notes, instructions, next steps, prescriptions and orders online, anytime through their Allina Health account, the online patient portal to their interactive health record.

“Patients are familiar with going online to access portions of their electronic health record for general medical information, such as scheduling an appointment, viewing lab results or view medical history, but doctor’s notes are the thread that ties together many pieces of information in the health record,” Sielaff says.

In addition, to being able to view doctor’s notes, Allina Health patients can send a medical message to their Allina providers, do telehealth visits and get their lab results usually same day from their desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone.

Patients who look for OpenNotes using their Allina Health online account will find their doctor’s notes in a section called Health Records Home, but as of now those notes apply to clinic visits only and not hospital care, Allina says.

“As doctors, we know that patients generally retain only a portion of the information that is exchanged with their doctor during an office visit,” Sielaff says. “Sharing these notes can greatly change the way patients engage with their doctor and manage their care.”

A national study in 2010 funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation’s largest philanthropy organization devoted exclusively to health and health care, tested the OpenNotes concept with 105 primary care physicians and more than 13,000 patients during a year-long voluntary program and found that patients had better recall after visits, felt more in control of their care, had better communication and collaboration with their doctor and took medications more effectively.

Allina joins a growing number of health systems giving patients access to physician notes via open source OpenNotes software. Other system include Rush University Medical in Chicago and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.