Medics use new online secure messaging system Published March 18, 2013 By Senior Airman Jordan Pollock 92nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. -- Anyone who receives medical care at the 92nd Medical Group can now register for MiCare, a new online confidential secure messaging service, on March 22. "This system has been shown to reduce the number of phone calls between patients and providers, increase patient satisfaction and save time for both the medical office staff and the patient," said Col. Chet Roshetko, 92nd Medical Group commander. The Air Force Medical Service aims to enroll as many patients as possible into MiCare and use secure messaging as another avenue of communication between patients and their healthcare teams. "The patient's healthcare team responds to all patient messages in a timely manner," said Tech Sgt. Paul Carter, 92nd Medical Support Squadron, "The team will work to respond to all messages generally within a 72-hour timeframe." To register, patients should visit their military treatment facility to initiate the face-to-face registration process. Patients will need show their military identification card and provide basic information such as name, social security number, birthday and email address - An email will be sent for patients to finish enrollment and confidential messages may begin. MiCare allows patients to: · Avoiding waiting in phone trees and playing "telephone tag" · Closely monitoring of health issues through confidential online communications without the inconveniences of traffic, parking or lost days at work · Request their next appointment · Request medication renewals · Receive test and lab results · Communicate online with the healthcare team about non-urgent symptoms · Request a copy of immunization records · Accessing a large library of patient education materials MiCare has been designed to support patients and healthcare teams and will be implemented Air Force-wide, so once registered, a patient will remain in the system--no matter where the Air Force takes them. "MiCare will improve the quality of health care our medical staff will be able to provide while making routine health care more convenient for our patients," said Roshetko, "This is an exciting step forward for medicine here at Fairchild." For more information, visit www.afms.af.mil/micare or call 509-247-5575.