Dr. Trent Rosenbloom, Internist and Pediatrician on Faculty in the Department of Biomedical Informatics and the Director of My Health at Vanderbilt, discusses the many benefits and ease of use of My Health at Vanderbilt, the premier patient portal available to all patients of Vanderbilt.
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Bridgette Butler: Welcome to this edition of the Vanderbilt Health and Wellness Wellcast. I'm Bridgette Butler with Health Plus. With me today is Dr. Trent Rosenbloom, Internist and Pediatrician on faculty at the Department of Biomedical Informatics and the Director of My Health at Vanderbilt. Today, we will be talking about My Health at Vanderbilt. Welcome, Dr. Rosenbloom.
Dr. Trent Rosenbloom: Hello.
Bridgette Butler: So, Dr. Rosenbloom, what is My Health at Vanderbilt?
Dr. Trent Rosenbloom: My Health at Vanderbilt is a patient portal at Vanderbilt. A patient portal is a website or an app you can put on your phone that lets you log in and look at your medical record and do things with your medical record like send a message to your healthcare provider or request an appointment or review your laboratory results that you had done the other day. It's a very powerful piece of software and Vanderbilt is one of the pioneers in patient portals.
Bridgette Butler: That is very interesting that Vanderbilt was one of the first. What are the benefits ... you mentioned a few ... of using My Health at Vanderbilt?
Dr. Trent Rosenbloom: My Health at Vanderbilt really lets people engage more actively in their healthcare. As I said, you can use My Health at Vanderbilt to do a number of really interesting things with your medical record and can message with your healthcare team. We are always adding new features to My Health at Vanderbilt that give you increased control over how you interact with Vanderbilt and your healthcare team. For example, just this past month, we added an ability for you to put yourself on a wait list for an earlier appointment to see your healthcare provider. I used this myself the other day when I wanted to get in to see Dr. Zic in Dermatology for my annual skin check. I was scheduled in September, but I wanted an appointment in August, so I simply pressed a button in My Health at Vanderbilt and waited until it offered me a better appointment for my schedule.
Bridgette Butler: There's a lot of conveniences by using My Health at Vanderbilt.
Dr. Trent Rosenbloom: That's right. You can also use My Health at Vanderbilt to add appointments to your calendar, to call your doctor's office with a single button from an appointment in your list, to recommend changes to your medication list if something changes.
Bridgette Butler: How do you sign up for an account and who is eligible for using My Health at Vanderbilt?
Dr. Trent Rosenbloom: Anybody who is a Vanderbilt patient or their caregivers are eligible for a My Health at Vanderbilt account. That includes adults and children. You can get a My Health at Vanderbilt account simply by coming in and receiving care. You will be offered an account at that time. You will simply have to answer a couple of questions and set up a password and you will have an account. You can also log into My Health at Vanderbilt and set up an account by answering a few questions that are a little bit more difficult. These are the kinds of questions you might answer when signing up for a new credit card. Questions are really there just to prove that you are who you say you are so that no one else can access your health records. For children, we need to make sure that there is a parent or guardian who can also access the account and provide proxy control over the account.
Bridgette Butler: That actually was something that I was wondering about was with such a convenient method of having a very comprehensive look at one's medical information, when caring for children, and you did just answer this ... it seems you have access to that information. How about if you care for elderly parents? Would you be able to monitor the same types of medical information for them?
Dr. Trent Rosenbloom: We have long had the ability for individuals who hold My Health at Vanderbilt accounts to delegate access to other individuals. If you are a competent adult, you can delegate access to anyone you want to help with your healthcare delivery. For example, my wife and I share access to each other's account using the delegate process. It is very simple to do. You can do it in the account and then we help you complete that setup. For older adults who maybe are no longer competent, or for children, then we set up what we call a "surrogate proxy account," where instead of sharing access, you take control over that individual's access. There are a few additional legal hurdles we have to step over. For example, if you want to be a surrogate proxy for your child, you are going to have to provide some documentation that you are, in fact, that child's parent or guardian. The same is true if you are going to be a surrogate proxy for an aging parent who is no longer competent. You will need to provide some documentation to indicate that you are the right person to access your parent's account for them.
Bridgette Butler: That's great that we have the ability to potentially not only monitor our own medical information in such a convenient format, but potentially help those that we love as well.
Dr. Trent Rosenbloom: That's right and we think it's a very important set of functions that we have.
Bridgette Butler: One thing that I did want to point out is that in addition to all of these other very, very strong benefits of using My Health at Vanderbilt, it can even help you with your Go for the Gold. You can upload your biometric information from your doctor, so your height, your weight, and your blood pressure from My Health at Vanderbilt directly to Health Plus to count for a Wellness Action in step 2 of Go for the Gold. So, there are a lot of conveniences to this portal and this product.
Dr. Trent Rosenbloom: That's great.
Bridgette Butler: Thank you very much, Dr. Rosenbloom.
Dr. Trent Rosenbloom: Very welcome.
Bridgette Butler: We appreciate the information.
Dr. Trent Rosenbloom: Thank you.
Bridgette Butler: Thanks for listening. If you have a story suggestion, please email it to us at health.wellness@vanderbilt.edu, or you can use the "Contact Us" page on our website at www.vumc.org/health-wellness.
