Genesis health care portal has poor user satisfaction
The Department of Defense needs to address a lingering lack of user satisfaction with the Military Health System’s Genesis online health care and health records portal, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
“We really want to emphasize to the DOD (Department of Defense), they have to take these recommendations seriously. If the users aren’t accepting of this system, then they have a real problem on their hands,” Carol Harris, director of the GAO’s Information Technology and Cybersecurity team, said in an interview.
Chief among the recom- mendations from the GAO in its recent report on Genesis: Set goals for improv- ing satisfaction and build a plan to achieve those goals.
“We do think that is a very important recommendation that they should take very seriously,” Harris said.
Similar to the “MyChart” system used by the Premier and Kettering health sys- tems in the Dayton area, MHS Genesis offers a way to send secure electronic mes- sages to physicians, request prescription refills, make appointments, check test results and more.
In 2022, the DOD began surveying users of MHS Gen- esis. “User satisfaction rates have improved over the past two years, but these rates are still lower than the rates for DOD’s old health records sys- tems,” the GAO said.
“It doesn’t seem like the DOD is very interested about how accepting the users are of the system,” Harris said. “Because I think for the DOD it’s really about that com- mand-and-control culture. They’re very hierarchical. They’re going to push down an order.”
Last June, MHS Genesis went live for patients at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Medical Center, the Air Force’s second-largest hospi- tal, replacing the TRICARE Online system.
Based on consumer feed- back received via surveys and social media, the user expe- rience has been positive at Wright-Patterson, Col. Dale Harrell, commander of the 88th Medical Group, said in an email in response to questions from the Dayton Daily News.
Genesis has strengthened communication with patients and the sharing of health information with other mil- itary hospitals, the Depart- ment of Veterans Affairs and local hospitals, Harrell added.
One early drawback was the inability to request pre- scription refills through Gen- esis, he said. But that was corrected in March this year, Harrell said.
“While all new systems have challenges, offering patients the level of technol- ogy they expect from their healthcare providers, helps us solidify the foundation for continuous improvements,” the commander said.
The DOD hasn’t yet set user satisfaction goals. “With- out goals for improving sat- isfaction, the department is really going to … have their hands tied in terms of what they can do to measure prog- ress and actually plan for improvement,” the GAO’s Harris said.
It’s not unusual for new users to be unsatisfied with new systems. Change is difficult. “You expect those numbers to be low,” Harris said.
But users have been surveyed two years in a row, in theory giving them enough time to get to know the system. And there have only been minimal improvements in their user experience, she said.
Only 29% of respondents think the new system is helping to provide adequate care. Said Harris, “That’s a huge problem.”
MHS Genesis is slowing military recruiting work, some critics have said, including two U.S. senators, leaving some recruits with identified medical issues unable to join the ranks as soon as they would like.
In some cases, recruits “walk away” from the recruiting process, Harris said.
Questions about the report were sent to Department of Defense representatives. A representative said they were working on a response.