Frequently Asked Questions

What is My HealtheVet?

My HealtheVet is a web-based system that empowers veterans with information and tools so that they can improve their health to the maximum extent possible. Participating veterans are given copies of key portions of their electronic health records. This record is stored in a secure and private environment called an eVAult. The eVAult will be personalized with appropriate links to useful explanatory material to help veterans understand what is in their record, and what they can do to improve their health condition. Veterans can also add structured medical information in the "self-entered" section of their eVAult.

Why did VHA create My HealtheVet?

Veterans wanted better, faster access to their own health information, and they wanted to take a more active role in managing their own health care.

How will My HealtheVet benefit veterans?

With My HealtheVet, veterans are able to:

Easily access their My HealtheVet medical information from anywhere in the world, with Internet access.
Control the health information in their eVAults
Gain a better understanding of their health status
Explore a variety of options to improve their health
Learn to use the available tools to become partners with their caregivers in creating an "epidemic of health"

An educated, empowered patient can participate more fully in decisions concerning his/her health.

How would My HealtheVet benefit the VA and beyond?

This product enables VA to reach out and provide veterans who are not currently enrolled in the system with health education and assessment services especially suited to veterans.
As veterans build up their lifelong health records, they can choose to share this information, in whole or in part, with all their health care providers, inside and outside the VA. This has the potential to dramatically improve the quality of care available to our nation's veterans.

Who were the partners in this initiative?

My HealtheVet was developed by the Veterans Health Administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Information, Enterprise Strategy. Consultants provided architectural design and development support from Electronic Data Systems (EDS) and Microsoft. Dell Computers donated the hardware utilized by the project.

Functional

What are the levels of participation that a veteran could choose?

A veteran can:

Visit the site anonymously to review health educational information and risk assessments specifically selected for the veteran audience
Obtain, store, and maintain a personal electronic copy of his/her own personal health record, starting with health information in VistA, and also has the option of entering data in the "self-entered" section of the record.

How does a veteran obtain a My HealtheVet account?

The Veteran must first go to a VA Medical Center for verification of his/her identity. Once this has been completed, the VA Medical Center personnel set up an account for the veteran in the My HealtheVet system. The veteran will then receive a logon ID, password and access information for the My HealtheVet system.

How does a veteran obtain an electronic copy of key portions of his/her VistA record?

Using the My HealtheVet system, the veteran can request a copy of his/her VistA record be sent to the My HealtheVet system. In the My HealtheVet system, his/her eVAult is updated with his/her VistA record.

What about prescription refills, clinic appointments, cancellations and e-mail confirmations?

Clinic appointments, cancellations, and e-mail confirmations are other components that fit into a general project description, which is called Electronic Service Delivery (ESD). ESD has been broken into many separate projects supporting different types of transactions. These services will be added to the My HealtheVet website as soon as they are available.

What is the merge button? Why is it there?

The merge button allows updates received from VA medical facilities to be blended with existing records. For example, after a visit to a VA Medical Center, veterans can electronically request an update of their file from their My HealtheVet account. Once the update arrives, it appears as a new file. Veterans can view the newly arrived update by clicking on the new record. The new record can be merged with existing data by clicking the "Merge" button.

How can a printed doctor's report be put into an existing eVAult?

Under Self-Entered Information, there are sections such as Medications and Lab Results; veterans can input any summary report that they have received. Veterans can give others permission to add these reports to their eVAult.

When a veteran is logged into My HealtheVet and goes to a new web site, how does the veteran return to the My HealtheVet web site?

When My HealtheVet links to a new web site, a new web browser window is opened. The easiest way to return to the My HealtheVet web site is to close the new window. This can be done by clicking once on the small X in the upper right corner of the new browser window. This will close the new window and the My HealtheVet page that was behind it will appear.

If a veteran want his/her laboratory data updated with cholesterol-level test results, but doesn't want their radiology summary report noted, is it safe for the veteran to get that update?

The intention is to allow the veteran to control how and when they want their file updated. The system has been designed to allow requests of portions of the record, however all segments of the VistA record are currently transferred.

If the veteran wanted information shared with a VA clinician and there was a discrepancy with the site information and the CPRS record, how would this be resolved?

The following steps should be followed:

First, the clinician should check to be sure that the information is from the same source. The My HealtheVet record will have information from multiple sites as well as self entered information - the source of all data is preserved.
The next step is to check the View Update History option to determine when the eVAult was last updated from the source being reviewed. It is possible that the Health eVAult has not been updated for some time.
After the veteran's My HealtheVet account and the VA record has been linked, the veteran will be able to request an update at any time by selecting the "Update Record Now" button and the update record will be delivered to his/her account.

What if a veteran read a report and thinks that he/she is going to die (even if it's just a misunderstanding)?

Medical students often believe they have contracted a disease that they are studying. They read about the symptoms and begin to think that they have those symptoms. The advice that is given to them is the best advice to give to the veteran - "When you think you have a medical condition, seek professional help. Go see your doctor." The veteran should not overreact, but should not ignore something that is troubling him/her. The insurance industry says that females live longer than males primarily because they regularly seek medical care and regularly visit their doctor.

What are Trackers?

Tracker is a term used for a type of self-entered data. Your physician may want you to monitor particular health values. These values can be entered over a period of time. When the physician is given access, he can monitor your condition. Doctors have determined the five most common trackers to be: blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, weight and heart rate. Your doctor can ask you to fill in one or more of them.

What is the difference between a "delegate" and a "grantee"?

A "delegate" is an individual who has been given the full access permission by the veteran to view and make changes to patient information. The delegate can also grant certain privileges to others.

A "grantee" is an individual that has been given limited access permission by the veteran or his/her delegate to view certain subject areas of the veteran's record.

Technical

What technology does My HealtheVet use?

My HealtheVet uses a variety of technologies including Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Extensible Style Language (XSL) for web page display and Extensible Markup Language (XML) for data description and storage, encryption technologies, Intel processors, and Microsoft Windows 2000 operating systems. The system is written to be browser-independent. Testing has included Internet Explorer versions 4 and 5, and Netscape version 4.

Why can't the system be bought off-the-shelf?

VA has unique privacy and security concerns in interfacing with VistA systems.

How does My HealtheVet differ from existing commercial or government products?

My HealtheVet provides a combination of features not available in other products. My HealtheVet does the following:

Emphasizes security and privacy
Allows access to electronic copies of key portions of the veteran's VistA health information
Enables a veteran to add information on medications, allergies, tests, medical history, and outside consultations to the record in a "self-entered" section
Will link to health risk assessments and health educational materials that is personalized automatically based on the health information in the veteran's eVAult
Enables a veteran to grant limited eVAult access to providers, relatives, and others
Meets Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) principles of consumer control, privacy compliance, and audit tracking

How does My HealtheVet protect privacy and promote security?

Privacy is protected in multiple ways:

This is an "OPT-IN" site. No information about a veteran as an individual is placed in this site without his/her first requesting it or entering it.
By policy, My HealtheVet does not distribute any information about veterans or their visits to the My HealtheVet web site without specific permission by the veteran.
All information is protected as it is being transmitted between the PC and the server. The industry standard Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol is used to encrypt all information that contains any information for veterans.
All of data is protected, as it is stored on the disk. The data is encrypted, so that only the veteran can read what is stored in his/her private health record. Each veteran's records are encrypted using keys unique to that veteran. Even the systems managers can see only encrypted blobs of bits.

The My HealtheVet record is kept secure using several techniques:

The Web servers are protected by firewalls that are constantly monitored for abnormal activities.
The servers are regularly updated with the latest security modifications.
The My HealtheVet project has security professionals who are attempting to gain access to the system on a regular basis. The My HealtheVet project makes improvements based on their recommendations.
Complex passwords are required when veterans access the My HealtheVet system. This will make it more difficult for anyone to determine User Names and Passwords by guessing or by repeated, methodical attempts.
My HealtheVet gives veterans the option to store their private individual key on their PCs. This key must be protected since only the veteran has it. The My HealtheVet personnel cannot restore a key because they do not have access to this information.

The My HealtheVet project constantly strives to improve the methods used to protect the privacy and security of veterans' data.

How does My HealtheVet pull data out of the respective VistA systems?

The process is as follows:

To create a My HealtheVet account, your identity must be validated at a VA Medical Facility with a picture ID.
The VA registrar will access the VistA system. You will be asked to enter a username. A password will be generated and given to you.
You now have access to the My HealtheVet system.
Once you have logged on to the My HealtheVet system, you can request a copy of key portions of your VistA record to be sent to My HealtheVet.
The request from My HealtheVet is received by the VistA system.
The VistA system retrieves the data and sends it to the My HealtheVet system.
The next time you sign into the My HealtheVet system, there is a notification that requested data has been received and is available.
If you select to merge this new data, it is merged with the existing information in your eVAult.

Where does the health information content come from?

The Office of Information is working with EES to procure licenses for a Health Education Library. EES is also working with VA clinical management to assemble additional health information specific to veteran issues such as Agent Orange, Cold Injury, PTDS, Gulf War Syndrome, etc., that will be integrated into the Health Education Library.

How does My HealtheVet relate to VistA?

The VA VistA system is the source of the electronic health records that are transferred to the eVAult associated with the veteran's My HealtheVet account. In the future, other systems will also be able to transfer data into the Health eVAult as well, in a standards based environment.

How does My HealtheVet relate to CPRS?

The My HealtheVet website is veteran-focused. The veteran "owns" a copy of his/her own personal health record. The VistA Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) is the authoritative VA medical record and remains that way. A copy of this record is given to the veteran and stored in his/her secure eVAult. My HealtheVet merges data from multiple facilities and preserves the source of the data. Additional data from other sources can be added to the My HealtheVet data, including self entered data (such as over the counter medications). The veteran, who is the only one who can give permission to others to review or update his/her data, controls this data. As an example, the veteran could give permission to a non-VA physician to add the results of some procedure into the My HealtheVet system.

How does My HealtheVet relate to GCPR?

The My HealtheVet website is veteran focused. The veteran "owns" a copy of his/her own personal health record. The Government Computer-Based Patient Record (GCPR) Framework Project is a federal health care initiative that will facilitate the secure electronic exchange of patient medical information among government health organizations, including VA, the Department of Defense, and the Indian Health Service. GCPR is designed for the use of these agencies, not for the individual patient. My HealtheVet would like to leverage any standards-based solutions developed for GCPR, such as XML formatted data extracts, from any of the involved organizations.

How do you know if someone is a veteran? Couldn't anyone log in and start using the website?

In order to establish a My HealtheVet account with privileges, veterans must present themselves at a medical center with a picture ID. Their My HealtheVet account is established through a VistA menu option; therefore, veterans will be confirmed before accounts are established.

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