Enrollment in the Vanderbilt Health patient portal, My Health at Vanderbilt (MHAV), has surged in recent months.
“Before COVID, we were enrolling about 3,000 new users per week. After COVID, it spiked to about 9,000 per week for a bit, then stabilized to around 5,000 per week,” said Trent Rosenbloom, MD, MPH, director of MHAV.
According to Rosenbloom, MHAV already had a strong infrastructure that made it capable of responding to a public health crisis. The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in Tennessee led straight to rapid growth in VUMC telehealth services, and part of the reason for the surge in MHAV enrollment has been the portal’s role in facilitating telehealth services.
In March, new MHAV enrollment processes for children and adolescents were introduced, facilitating rapid growth in telehealth services for these patients.
To avoid overwhelming outpatient assessment sites, MHAV served as the primary method for communicating COVID-19 test results to outpatients. In the recent telehealth upswing, MHAV messaging became an even more important avenue for communicating with VUMC providers.
By the end of the fiscal year on June 30, MHAV is on track to exceed its enrollment goal for the year by approximately 55,000 users.
MHAV is an online tool that patients can use to message their VUMC health care provider, schedule appointments, view medical records and test results, and more. The portal now has 623,343 registered users and each month it’s used by approximately 115,000 patients and family members.