Introduction to Assessments

Assessments are automated questionnaires that can help you identify health issues and get proper treatment for symptoms and health risks. From the Assessments tab in Online Care, you can find an appropriate assessment and take it immediately. The assessment you choose will ask you relevant questions that are dynamically adapted to suit your particular health needs.

If you do not have a specific health problem in mind, assessments can help you evaluate your general health or existing conditions, helping you get the right care and enhancing the effectiveness of ongoing treatments.

How to Take an Assessment

To get started with assessments, click the Assessments tab at the top of any page in Online Care. In the Assessments area, you can search for assessments related to a specific concern. You can also browse assessments relevant to specific symptoms, conditions, lifestyle issues or wellness.

If you have a specific assessment, symptom, treatment or condition in mind, enter the item in the search toolbar and click Search. Your search results will show all matching assessments, including a description of each. In the example below, searching for "heart" results in three available assessments. Once you've found an assessment you would like to take, click on the assessment title to begin immediately.

Not Sure Who to Talk To?

If you don't know who you should talk to or if you don't have a specific health issue in mind, you can take the Not Sure Who to Talk To assessment. This brief questionnaire will ask you a few questions about your health and recommend appropriate conversations or relevant health information. You can then use the suggestions in your To Do List to find a doctor and connect immediately for a live online conversation.

The Not Sure Who to Talk To assessment is available directly from your personalized home page, or in the Assessments area.

Taking an Assessment

Each assessment is a set of questions that are personalized to match your particular health characteristics. These questions may use media clips, informational articles, diagrams and interactive tools to accurately assess your health. Your answers are used to generate a specific set of recommendations tailored to your health needs. Required questions will be marked with a red asterisk (*), and you will not be allowed to continue the assessment without providing answers to these questions.

The progress bar at the top of the page tells you how much of the assessment you have finished. If you're not able to complete the assessment in one session, click Finish Later to save your progress. You can resume the assessment at any time in the Assessments area.

After taking an assessment, you can edit the provided responses, view the suggested items in My Agenda, or view the complete assessment report, as shown below:

After you've completed an assessment, you may want to share the results with your primary care physician (PCP) or other care providers. To learn more about sharing reports, please see My History.

How Assessments are Used

Assessments are used to create personalized recommendations to help you manage your care online. When you finish an assessment, suggestions relevant to your answers are automatically added to your To Do List in My Agenda, where you can access the suggested resources immediately.

Follow-up suggestions may include:

• Conversations with doctors or specialists, including topics for discussion.
• Self-care tools that can help you track and share your progress with care providers.
• Educational materials, such as articles and video and audio clips.
• Further assessments related to specific health needs.

You can also view all of your responses and suggestions at a later time by accessing the assessment report. Each completed assessment generates a report containing the assessment summary, your responses, and any suggestions you received.

You can also distribute or archive the assessment report using the export tools at the top of the report:

• Print: Print the complete report.
• PDF: Save a copy of the report to your computer in PDF format.
• Message: Send a copy of the report to another Online Care user via secure message.
• Email: Send a copy of the report via email.

Health History Assessment

The health history assessment is a general health questionnaire that identifies common health characteristics and risk factors. After evaluating your overall health history, the health history assessment provides appropriate follow-up recommendations for a wide range of conditions, symptoms and lifestyle issues. This assessment is slightly longer than other assessments, helping to build your online health history and identify concerns you may wish to discuss with physicians during Online Care conversations.

When you sign up for HMSA's Online Care, the health history assessment is automatically added to your To Do List, in the My Agenda area. Taking this assessment will help you build a health agenda, creating a list of follow-up items that you can use to improve your health. Once you have a list of health recommendations in your To Do List, you can find and connect with providers, take further assessments, or read educational materials relevant to your assessment responses.

After you complete the assessment, we recommend that you share the assessment report with your primary care physician and with your other Online Care providers. To find out how to share an assessment report during a conversation, see Having a Web Conversation.