MHS Virtual Education Center Empowers Patients to Improve Outcomes

Photo By Savannah Blackstock | The Defense Health Agency is developing the Virtual Education Center: a web-based library and communications platform that enables providers and patients to access, store, and use vetted MHS education resources more easily than ever before.  

UNITED STATES

05.10.2022

Courtesy Story

Defense Health Agency

The following article is a first-person account by Army Col. (Dr.) Maria Molina, division chief of the Medical Modernization and Simulation Division of the J-7 Education and Training Directorate at the Defense Health Agency.

In the Military Health System, we providers seek to empower patients to engage in their health care planning and decision-making to help improve outcomes. With that in mind, the Defense Health Agency is developing the Virtual Education Center: a web-based library and communications platform that enables providers and patients to access, store, and use vetted MHS education resources more easily than ever before.

Currently a prototype, the VEC (pronounced “vek”) is designed to promote a culture of proactive prevention and collaboration through quality education. Over the next three years, the system will be tested and integrated with MHS GENESIS, the Department of Defense’s new, standardized electronic health record, and rolled out across the MHS.

With the VEC, providers and patients each customize personal digital dashboards that they can securely access anywhere and use wherever they are stationed or happen to be. The dashboards enable sharing written, audio, visual, and interactive educational materials in ways that work best for providers and patients alike.

Part of the MHS putting patients at the center of everything we do is helping ensure patients have the awareness, knowledge, and willingness to use MHS education resources effectively. The VEC will be an invaluable tool for achieving that goal and is designed to help save time, improve processes, and remove barriers to care for those we serve.

The VEC offers MHS providers opportunities to improve all care, both virtual and in-person. We know patients will have the material, that they won’t lose it, and if they have reviewed it. The system may help increase provider efficiency, decrease meeting times and unnecessary visits, and reduce readmissions and other adverse outcomes related to common diseases. By emphasizing to patients what’s important, it should help increase patients’ engagement in their care and overall satisfaction with providers.

Quick, Integrated Access

The VEC aims unify all the great educational work across the MHS into one system so all providers and beneficiaries can access health information validated by the MHS clinical communities. Providers can pick materials from a variety of sources – the VEC’s MHS-wide resource library, materials they created, or materials from their primary facilities. Eventually, military hospitals and clinics and the DHA as an organization will be able to send tailored announcements about events, site-specific resources, and other vital information through the VEC.

Using the VEC will be easy. When I need to share materials with a patient, I go to my VEC dashboard, click on the materials I want to share, enter the patient’s email or phone number, and click Send. The patient gets the email or text message on the device of their choice and opens a link to access the materials on their dashboard. The system sends reminders to alert the patient of the new message and notifies me when the patient has read the material.

Patients will be able to search the VEC resources, save them to their own folders, and share information just as easily as their providers can with their families and caregivers. These capabilities and others will encourage patients to proactively engage in their own care.

Rollout and Next Steps

Part of the MHS’ Ready Reliable Care initiative, the VEC is designed to be the MHS’ first standardized patient education service and content library for military beneficiaries. Work on the Phase One prototype is nearly complete and the MHS is already planning a six-month Phase Two pilot phase for this summer in the San Antonio market.

For the pilot, five military hospitals and clinics will use the VEC prototype and offer feedback through built-in analytics at the patient, clinic, market, and DHA levels to improve the system for Phase Three. Phase Three will aim to achieve full operating capability – including integration with MHS GENESIS – across the MHS within two years.

Going the Extra Mile

While the VEC focuses on patient empowerment and engagement, it also is designed to make providers’ lives easier.
We MHS providers just want to do what's best for patients by giving them all the information they need to make informed decisions. Providers are busy, however, and even small tasks – like sharing educational materials – may be daunting.

The VEC eliminates that barrier. Instead of having to write down a website, find a QR code, or run around the clinic looking for brochures on a patient’s current diagnosis or treatment, providers can quickly and easily send all that material to their patients from the VEC. Soon, doing the right thing for patients is only a couple of clicks away. For MHS providers, the VEC enables us to go the extra mile that we always want to without increasing our work burden – and helping ensure patients get the care they deserve.

• Date Taken: 05.10.2022
• Date Posted: 05.10.2022 17:09
• Story ID: 420415
• Location: US