HealthVault-Setting Up Consumer Email Address For Secure Messages Using Government Direct Project

I am just going to address here how you as a a consumer get set up through HealthVault. As Sean has mentioned on the blog, there will be more information coming out for providers to get set up from their end. Now he says it’s simple, well simple for him to say…you can read through the instructions here and go to the Direct page to set up a Gateway if you have some tech knowledge but as stated, the EHR vendors will be jumping in here to help out soon too.

For providers he also recommends checking with your state HIE, again if you know who and what they are, some folks reading here will and some won’t. It might be the easier path to wait until your medical record vendor is up and running to help you out as mentioned above. I am guessing too that the major ISPs will be jumping in here shortly to help make this happen since most, Verizon for one example, are right in there with a big healthcare focus. Sean also promises more “how to” information to come along so stay tuned. Now if you are a patient you can do your part and get set up with the email address, and this way you are ready for action when your doctor is set up. I did mine and this part is not hard at all. You start out at the message center and the screens will walk you through.

The next screen you see is this one where you allow access.

You create your email address here and you can have 3 of them. The address will be at the domain of @direct.healthvault.com. That’s it so now I am set up to get messages at this address.

The link below will give you are few more details about the Direct Project if you want to catch up and see what’s going on.

Microsoft Delivers Encrypted E-mail Using Government “Direct Project” Security Protocols With HealthVault Personal Health Records

When everyone is set up this will make it so much easier to communicate for all of us. You can read the entire article at The Family Guy Blog for more details on how the provider end is going to work and if you are a bit tech savvy and want to try it out and set up your certificates, the information is there with some additional help links and Sean says he will help you out if you get stuck.

Last week I had a great time participating in an HHS press event launching the Direct Project. At the event we announced that every HealthVault record would automatically be given a Direct address. This is really cool --- anybody in the country can get a free, convenient, familiar email address and use it to receive critical health information from their providers.

Well, I'm super-psyched to say that we've followed through on that announcement and the HealthVault Message Center is now live and kicking. We'll do some cosmetic work over the next few months, especially around integrating the Message Center into the pages at healthvault.com --- but it is up and live and ready for action. So go get your address now!

The cool thing about Direct is that running it is (almost) as easy as running any other email system ... so contact your regular email provider and tell them they could get some great business by extending their service to support the healthcare protocols at http://directproject.org --- just about any credible ISP could make it happen without a lot of trouble.