Naval Health Clinic Corpus Christi patients using RelayHealth after Jan. 29 will send secure messages to their Medical Homeport (MHP) Team using a new web address, https://mil.relayhealth.com.

The change replaces www.relayhealth.com in order to meet DoD Cybersecurity standards.

RelayHealth is one of the advantages of being enrolled with a NHC Corpus Christi primary care manager (PCM) and MHP Team. It allows patients to ask health care questions about non-urgent symptoms, request test and lab results, and schedule a future appointment. In some cases, RelayHealth can help patients avoid unnecessary office visits.

Once a patient submits a secure message, he or she will receive an initial response within 8 hours.

"We won't go home until we acknowledge every message in the system," said Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Eugene Smith, NHC Corpus Christi RelayHealth super user and MHP assistant leading petty officer.

Seventy percent of 13,078 enrolled NHC Corpus Christi patients are signed up for RelayHealth, and Smith says his team typically processes 75-100 secure messages daily.

Since 2009, RelayHealth has provided Patient Engagement and Interoperable Secure Messaging solutions to the Military Health System. These solutions support the move to a more connected and patient-centric model of care, according to Federal Solutions Military Health Account Manager Rhonda Sterner in a written message.

"Today, across all of military health, more than 32,000 clinical users connect to more than 1.6 million military health beneficiaries at over 1,200 MTF, branch, community clinics, and other sites both CONUS (continental United States) and OCONUS (outside the continental United States)," said Sterner.

Improving overall patient satisfaction through connectivity solutions is a top priority at NHC Corpus Christi.

Smith assures patients the switch to the new URL will be seamless.

"The change will essentially be easy, because patients won't have to change any of their personal information to their account," he said. "Patients can still message their provider and nursing staff as they have been doing in the past."

Those using the old website, www.relayhealth.com will be flagged by the system and automatically moved to the new website.

"Once this occurs, we ask the patients to save the new website to their tablet or smart devices," said Smith. "We as a staff are able to assist anyone with questions or concerns to their account. The only time you won't be able to send messages will be the weekend of January 27-29 because of system maintenance. Normal RelayHealth operations will resume on Monday, January 30, 2017."

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