If the ADHA and the DoHDA want consumers to use the My Health app to access their My Health Record, they need to improve the user experience. Hugely.
I have listened to many, many, oh Lord, many discussions about My Health Record and the My Health app and the hopes and dreams digital health mandarins have for them both.
The latest was an Australian Association of Practice Managers webinar recently in which two officials from the Australian Digital Health Agency told practice managers that if they weren’t yet connected up to the My Health Record, their doctors could always ask patients to show them reports and results on their phone, via the app, and then share them with the doctor.
According to the ADHA, even though the My Health app has not received a lot of media attention, there have been over a million views of My Health Records via the app.
These two facts blow my mind in a couple of ways.
First of all, how is it possible that there are still medical practices in this country that are not connected to My Health Record? And before anyone yells at me about internet access and digital maturity – there is help out there. Call the ADHA, for crying out loud, and get some assistance.
Second, well done to anyone who has (a) successfully downloaded and used the My Health app, and (b) has connected their My Health app to their My Health Record.
I have failed miserably on both counts, and I count my digital maturity as pretty damn mature, frankly.
Somewhere there is a UX expert looking at both entities and shaking their heads. Because I know I am.
Bear with me, readers, and follow my tortuous path to interoperability.
Do I have a My Health Record? Yes I do – at least I thought I did, because I’m sure I have accessed it in the past via the MyGov website and a password.
Sadly, last time I visited I made the classic mistake of obeying the instructions when the website told me to turn off my password and use a digital ID instead. Which gets me here:
Not a lot of explanation going on there. What is a digital ID, for a start? So, like a fool, I click “Select myID”. That gets me here:
Again, what? What is my myID email? Is it my myGov username? No, it is not, apparently. Is it my usual personal email, perhaps?
Why yes; yes it is. Good to know. That gets me here:
Okay, so I need the myID app, apparently.
So, I download it, sign in with my phone’s Face ID and that gets me … nowhere much. Certainly there’s no immediately apparent place to put in that four-digit code which, by the way, is now irrelevant because in the time it took me to download the myID app, it expired.
Related
In the app, I click on “How to use myID” and get this:
Is that not what I just did? Except, when it comes to Step 7, I am never asked for the four-digit code. So now what?
I relaunch myID and lo, it asks for the code. I enter it and am sent back to the home screen.
And now the MyGov website updates and chirps at me:
“Your Digital ID doesn’t meet the requirements for myGov. Please go to your myID to strengthen your identity. You may need to use your identity provider app to give details from more identity documents and use face verification.”
Okay.
So I then have to enter the details of my driver’s licence and Medicare card in order to get my myID up to par.
I then have to log in AGAIN (another four-digit code) and finally the myGov website lets me in to my account.
You’ll note I have not yet got anywhere near the My Health app. But I can now access My Health Record on the website, however … which then asks me to set up a “linking code” so my MHR can be linked to MyGov. What?
So I do all that. And then I get this:
I fill that in, click “Next” and get … nothing. No movement. Nada. Other than a question about whether I need an interpreter.
So, I am now at a dead end. And I haven’t even started to get connected to the My Health app.
I download the damn thing anyway, and fire it up. Log in, it says. Welcome, it says. Get started. Now it says I must have:
- a myGov account. Tick.
- accessed My Health Record at least once. Yes, ages ago. Tick.
- linked My Health Record to my myGov account. Uh-oh, dead end.
This is where I give up and call the My Health Record helpline – 1800 723 471.
Then ensues 11 minutes of hell, ladies and gentlemen.
Turns out the My Health Record I thought I created years ago doesn’t, in fact, exist.
“You didn’t create one,” says the lovely lady on the end of the phone. “You can access one, but you never set one up.”
Could have fooled me, lovely lady, but okay.
So, I have now set up My Health Record – 314 documents – not bad for an MHR only set up today, say I.
I tell the lovely lady on the My Health Record helpline that I want to link my My Health app to my My Health Record.
“Oh, I wouldn’t download the My Health app if I were you,” she says. “It’s very glitchy. It’s much easier to access My Health Record through the MyGov website.”
Ringing endorsement there. But I’m going to do it anyway, lovely lady.
And what do you know, after doing another lap of the four-digit bullshit via myID, suddenly I’m being asked if I want to link My Health app to My Health Record.
YES. YES I DO.
Boom. There it all is. Medicare history. Immunisation history. Medications. Documents. No hospitals or practice reports – because apparently none of the ones I’ve used are linked to My Health Record. Or maybe it’s because I haven’t asked them to upload to the MHR I thought I had, but actually didn’t. But do now. What?
I don’t know what everyone’s complaining about. Smooth as a baby’s bottom, that process.