Catherine (Cait) M. DesRoches, DrPH, MSc, is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a health policy, survey, and data nerd with expertise in emerging trends in health care delivery. Cait noticed early in her career that the concerns of patients and their families are often not the same as those of clinicians and policymakers. Bringing this patient and family voice into the world of health services research led directly to her current role as the Director of OpenNotes. She is the Principal Investigator of the OpenNotes Lab–which designs, evaluates, and guides innovations in clinical documentation, medical records, and patient engagement–and the Program Director for the Keane OpenNotes Fellowship in Patient Engagement and Transparency at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).
Cait earned her bachelor’s degree from Emmanuel College in 1991, and her Master of Science, in public health, from the University of Massachusetts. In 2000, Cait completed her doctorate in public health at Columbia University. Prior to joining the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Division of General Medicine, she held faculty and research positions at Harvard Medical School, Simmons College, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Cait came to OpenNotes from Mathematica Policy Research, where she was a Senior Survey Researcher and Senior Fellow.
Get to know Dr. DesRoches
Board member Kevin Freiert sat down with Dr. DesRoches to get her thoughts on the CHAMP project. They spoke about:
- Dr. DesRoches’ background as Executive Director of OpenNotes and faculty at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
- The rationale for and benefits of measuring the health of relationships between patients and their providers.
- The challenges and the project plan for the development, refinement, and deployment of CHAMP.
