The Veterans Affairs Department plans to establish at all VA medical facilities by March 2011 the capability for veterans to securely communicate online with their physicians through their My HealtheVet (https://www.myhealth.va.gov) patient portal.
VA has to date tested secure email at 40 of its facilities so that veterans can inquire about their prescription refills, test results and appointments, said Dr. David Douglas, who is leading VA's effort to deploy secure messaging
Veterans can access the secure messaging feature through a tab on their MyHealtheVet Web site and select "opt in" after reading important information about its use, he said. They can determine if their healthcare team has been phased in to the communications feature by creating a new message and looking for the provider name in the "to" field.
They can also use secure messaging to discuss such things as symptoms, questions about prescribed medications and appointment cancellations with their physicians or their staff, Douglas said in a recent announcement on the MyHealtheVet site.
In the future, VA plans to use secure messaging in place of some face-to-face appointments to "get rid of the need to drive to a VA medical center or clinic," he said.
