Sansum Clinic patients will be switched to a new health care information portal next week, which is part of the Santa Barbara County health care system’s integration with Sutter Health.
The new system, My Health Online, and current system, MyChart, use the same vendor (Epic) and similar services for patients and providers, but the interface is different.
Dr. Kurt Ransohoff, president of Sutter Health Greater Central Coast, used the analogy of a kitchen with the same appliances and utensils, but each organization setting it up differently.
“It’s familiar, it’s the same idea, but it’s going to be a little bit different,” he said.
Sansum Clinic — a nonprofit organization of primary, specialty and urgent care clinics — joined Sutter Health in 2023, and became the base of the larger system’s new Greater Central Coast market.
Dr. Kurt Ransohoff Credit: Courtesy photo
Patients still will be able to schedule in-person and telehealth appointments, message doctor’s offices, view test results and request prescription refills with Sutter Health’s My Health Online portal.
The Nov. 1-9 transition period will have fewer features available because of information switching over to the new system, according to Twilight Brunner, the senior director for digital services.
Patients will get login information for My Health Online on Saturday but won’t be able to schedule appointments or message doctors’ offices until Nov. 9, when all providers start using it.
“We want to make sure people are in the system to respond,” Brunner said.
Appointments past Nov. 9 already aren’t showing up in MyChart since they’re being loaded into the new system, she noted.
Most people will be able to use the same username and password to log into My Health Online, or be notified otherwise.
“This weekend we have, what, 80 people working both days, all day, trying to do all the things that need to be done on the back end,” he said, and Brunner affirmed.
Electronic Health Records Transition
The patient portal changeover is part of the larger process to transfer electronic health records to the Sutter Health system, Brunner said.
“That’s the reason we have to make the change,” Ransohoff said. “The (patient) portal is so integrated into the electronic health record system.”
Sansum Clinic is an ambulatory-only system integrating into a much larger health care system, and Sutter Health has more back-end digital tools for health care providers, Brunner said.
Twilight Brunner Credit: Courtesy photo
Sutter Health has invested in digital systems and technology “to improve patient care and take some of the burden off clinicians,” Brunner said.
More information about the MyChart to My Health Online patient portal transition is available on the Sansum Clinic website, with a FAQ and helpline for anyone having issues logging in.
The My Health Online transition page for Sansum Clinic patients is here.
The My Health Online (MHO) help desk is available at 800-4SUTTER, option 3, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. An online chat option is also available on the MHO help center.
About three to five years of medical record history will be imported into the My Health Online system. Patients who need older information can access it through the MyChart account or the health information management department.
Incorrect Billing Estimates Sent to Patients
When Sansum Clinic teams were loading future appointments into My Health Online, there was a glitch in which some patients received incorrect billing estimates by email last week.
Sutter Health has a feature that estimates the cost of future appointments for self-pay patients who aren’t using insurance. As some appointments loaded into the new system, insurance wasn’t applied to all appropriate accounts.
“It’s a timing issue,” Ransohoff said. “Before insurance could get loaded, the program decided, oh, these people don’t have insurance.”
He and Brunner said it was a “small fraction” of total patients who got the incorrect billing notices, and they sent out an email afterward telling people it was a mistake.
“It was enough to get noticed by people,” Ransohoff said.
“Obviously, we never want a glitch that impacts patient care ever,” Brunner said. “We were not thrilled that it happened, but we were able to identify it, stop it and send out a correction right away.”
The correction email, sent on Oct. 26, read: “On Friday, October 24, you may have received an email with an inaccurate estimate for an upcoming visit. We’re reaching out to let you know that this message was sent in error. Please disregard the estimate and any balance information included.”
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