Education on My Healthevet to Increase Access to Psychiatric Healthcare for Veterans

Introduction: Access to mental health care can be challenging for many veterans. The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) developed the patient portal My Healthevet (MHV) to increase access to healthcare services. Despite this program, many veterans still do not take advantage of the portal. The goal of this literature review was to gain knowledge on benefits and barriers of using patient portals, identification of patients who use and do not use patient portals, and interventions to increase the use of patient portals.Evidence Summary: The use of patient portals, including the VHA portal MHV, helps to increase interactions between clinicians and their patients; however, there are still many veterans that are not utilizing MHV.Gaps: There are limited studies which specifically look at the current use of MHV. Additionally, there are limited studies which identify current awareness, understanding and barriers which supports the use of MHV.Recommendations for Practice: Recommendations for practice include staff assessing current use of MHV on admission to an acute care setting, provide education on MHV with enrollment prior to discharge, and post discharge assessment of the veteran’s use of MH