HealthVault Patient Portal & DIRECT Messaging

Question

Hi,

I am trying to understand the various ways in which a Patient can access his Direct Message Inbox provided by HealthVault. Consider a scenario in which a Healthcare Organization already has developed a Patient Portal app driven by HealthVault. In this case, is there a way the patient can log into the patient portal app and view the DIRECT message that he has received instead of having to go to HealthVault Message Center. Additionally, is there a way the UI and look and feel can be re-branded for a particular organization to provide a consistent User Interface to the Patient. 

Warm Regards,

Shyam

Answer 1

Hi Shyam,

Here are some links that will help you get started:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/familyhealthguy/archive/2011/02/12/start-sharing-information-with-patients-today.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/familyhealthguy/archive/2011/02/18/even-more-thunder-for-direct.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/familyhealthguy/archive/2011/02/24/more-on-adding-direct-patient-messaging-to-an-ehr.aspx

Answer 2

Hi Santosh,

Thank  you for the links. My question was more a very specific one on whether going to HealthVault Message Center through the URL https://apps.healthvault.com/MessageCenter/about.aspx was the only way patients can access their Direct addresses or whether a solution can be set up to customize the UI and integrate HealthVault Message Center into a organization's website / patient portal etc.

Warm Regards,

Shyam

Answer 3

I believe the first link above has the answer to your question: "You can now construct a "plain old" email message and send it through the gateway --- using any email client configured to talk to the gateway as its SMTP server --- and it will be properly encrypted and sent on its way."

Answer 4

Shyam, Message Center saves incoming Direct messages as objects of type "Message" in the user's record ... so it's completely feasible for an application to provide a viewing experience on their own portal. That said, rendering email is a bit complex so it won't be a trivial task. An "in-between" approach might be to be able to show a list of messages on the portal and maybe a preview, but then link off to Message Center to interact with them.

We are looking at adding some new methods to the API to make it easier to work with and send messages --- but that will be awhile before it makes it to release. The Message Center client itself is not co-brandable at this time.

Answer 5

Hi Sean,

Thank you much for your response. It does answer my original question on what are the potential ways in which we can introduce patient's user experience.

Thanks again.

Warm Regards...Shyam.