A secure website for patients to interact with their family doctors was launched Tuesday by the Canadian Medical Association.

CMA president Dr. Brian Day said the Mydoctor.ca portal will empower patients to take a more active role in their health care.

"The patient will be in control. I believe in empowering patients. I believe in a patient-focused system where the patient and the consumer is No. 1," Day said.

The new online tool, unveiled Tuesday at a news conference in Vancouver, focuses on tracking tools for three key areas: asthma, high blood pressure and obesity.

Patients using the system can call up their personal profile online and enter information about their conditions. That information is forwarded to their doctors' offices and then the physician monitors and assesses it.

More conditions, such as diabetes, will be added as time goes on.

The portal can also include health records and a secure messaging system between doctor and patient.

About 200 physicians and several hundred patients are already using the site created by CMA company, Practice Solutions.

Dr. Tom Foggin, a family physician in Port Coquitlam who was at the press conference, has been testing the new system and said fears that it may increase doctors' workloads are unfounded.

"Some of my colleagues have said, 'I'm not even going there, I cannot have more messages.' But I've not had many messages. And there's just been very appropriate messages that have saved some visits."

Company president Larry Mohr said he also expects workloads to decrease.

"Mydoctor.ca effectively reduces the demand on busy physicians," he said. "It does this by actively engaging patients in self-management of their own chronic conditions."

"It is in fact an extension of their doctor's care and doctor's office."

Asked about the system's security, the company president said the information will never leave the portal.

"The piece that people might get most nervous about would be the secure messaging where people would normally think messages are going out over the internet," said Mohr.

But he said the patient logs into the portal with their user ID and password then sends a message to the doctor. "That message never leaves the portal. They are really posting that message with the doctor."

The doctor then gets an e-mail saying there is a message and logs in with his or her own password and ID.

Mohr said that doctors would pay about $240 to get the system from Practice Solutions.

He also said that "right now most services that are done online would not be covered by the provincial health plans, but that varies from province to province."

"I think it's fairly safe to say that no province has so far really incorporated into their fee schedule for online consultations."

But Jay Mercer, the CMA'S medical director who participated in the news conference via conference call from Ottawa, said Ontario has different payment methods.

"If the doctor is doing a fee-for-service online, it's likely they would charge the patient. But it is conceivable that at some point the province will get onside and provide fee codes for some of these activities."

Day suggested the system might result in lower health-care costs.

The online system initially will be addressing chronic care and more than 70 per cent of the health costs are in chronic care, Day said.

"So I think you will find that as governments recognize that this is actually going to save them money by eliminating many of the problems that happen with the lesser quality of management of chronic care, this could actually be an investment for them."

With files from the Canadian Press