We Would Have Gone Years Without Knowing

A couple attended a GOLD session focused on MyChart and AI. Neither of them had ever used either one.

During the session, she shared a concern she'd been carrying. Her husband was on two blood pressure medications, and she wondered whether one of them might be reducible. She wanted to ask their doctor, but she didn't know how to start that conversation. She wasn't comfortable sending a message through the portal she had never used.

By the end of the session, she had done all of it:

She had logged into MyChart for the first time. She had reviewed her husband's medications inside the portal. She had used AI to better understand her question and what to ask. She had drafted a clear, confident message to her doctor, and sent it. She had scheduled a follow-up appointment, on her own, in the same hour.

Before leaving, she said: “I didn't even know these resources existed, or that they could be this easy to use.”

She added something that quietly captures why GOLD exists: without this experience, they might have gone years without using these tools or feeling confident enough to try. Years of guessing at appointment timing. Years of not asking the questions worth asking. Years of being passengers in their own healthcare.

In one session, she moved from uncertainty to action, actively engaging in her husband's care, communicating with providers, and managing appointments independently.