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59th MDW rolls out patient online secure messaging

  • Published
  • By Linda Frost and 1st Lt. Sean D. Rotbart
  • 59th Medical Wing
LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  Patients seen at Air Force medical facilities in San Antonio can now communicate with their medical provider in a secure online service to manage their health care.

The 59th Medical Wing announced patient registration this week for MiCare, an internet-based portal with a confidential secure messaging service. The system allows beneficiaries to easily interact with their military healthcare team, request medication refills, get lab results, and request appointments.

"MiCare has been shown to significantly increase patient satisfaction, and save time for the medical staff and the patient," said Col. (Dr) Markham Brown, deputy chief of the medical staff.

"Patients can manage what information their providers see and help control their medical data. They can communicate online about test results and access health educational resources," he added.

According to Dr. Brown, patients referred to civilian providers can link their military and civilian health records. Providers can research a patient's health information, and upload managed care data from the military's electronic medical record program.

MiCare has been designed to support patients and healthcare teams and will be implemented Air Force-wide, so once registered, a patient will remain in the system--no matter where the Air Force takes them.

The Air Force Medical Service aims to enroll as many patients as possible into MiCare and utilize secure messaging as the primary form of communication between patients and their healthcare teams.

To register, patients should visit their Primary Care Clinic (Family Practice, Flight Medicine, Internal Medicine or Pediatrics) front desk to initiate the face-to-face registration process. Each patient will need to show their military identification card and provide basic information such as name, social security number, birthday and email address.

In order to protect one's healthcare privacy, all adults, including family members must register in person to participate in this secure messaging service. For pediatric patients, the parent must first complete their registration before they will be able to communicate with their child's pediatric team. An email will be sent for patients to finish enrollment and confidential messages may begin.

For more information, visit http://www.afms.af.mil/.