Photo by: //hccweb.cair.du.edu
The new online Health and Counseling Center student portal, which allows students to check lab results, look at their account billing status and e-mail with a health care professional they have already seen, went live last Monday, Feb. 16.
Another feature of the portal, an appointment-making function, should be up and running sometime in the next two weeks, said Health Promotions Coordinator Katie Dunker.
This service will allow students to schedule next-day appointments after 5 p.m. the previous day. The system will ask the student a series of question to determine the nature of the appointment and how long it will take. Then it will show a timetable of available appointment slots for the student to choose from.
If a student receives a message from a Health Center physician or lab results through the portal, a notification e-mail will be sent to his or her DU account.
The Health Center cannot e-mail lab results or healthcare provider messages through email providers like G-mail, Yahoo or DU Webmail because these are not secure channels for confidential health information.
Many health providers, such as Kaiser Permanente, operate a Web portal in the same manner, said Dunker.
The Health Center implemented the online portal to make communication between students and providers more convenient.
“The interface can be on the student’s own time and the provider’s own time,” said Dunker.
The site was also established to make scheduling appointments easier for sick students. Currently, students are encouraged to call the Health Center at 7:30 a.m. to make a same-day appointment. When the online appointment service goes live, students will be able to make an appointment anytime after 5 p.m. until the next morning.
This will help if sick students want to make an appointment at night, and sleep late the next morning. It will also be helpful for students to plan an appointment around their class schedule the next day, said Dunker.
“It’s going to be a really good tool for students to use,” she said, “It’s going to increase communication between providers and students. It mostly will increase convenience for students.”
The new online portal is now available at www.du.edu/duhealth.com.
