First, it was offered to veterans. Then, United Healthcare presented it to members. Now Farzad Mostashari, MD, the national health IT coordinator, wants vendors to make it easy for all consumers by early 2013 to view, download and transmit their health information to another party in the form of a Blue Button feature.
People can get access to Blue Button, which allows them to print, download and view their personal health records – and now combine it with claims data and health screenings – with a simple click, according to Mary Mosquera.
Originally developed for veterans, Blue Button was launched in 2010 by the Department of Veterans Affairs to allow the simple exchange of a patient’s personal health data in a standard, consistent format. In August, the one millionth veteran registered for Blue Button.
“I think, is underappreciated for how significant that’s going to be to the concept of consumer-mediated health information exchange,” Mosquera quoted Mostashari at a Sept. 10 ONC summit on consumer health IT. “It moves us from personal health records tethered to this particular provider’s or that particular health plan’s data source to the concept of a personally controlled health record,” he said.
Hopes are that it will speed up capabilities for Stage two meaningful use requirements in 2014 for patient engagement and health information exchange.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health (ONC) IT has established a Twitter hashtag of #VDTnow for companies and organizations to post their commitment to establishing the feature.
In other ONC news, the agency has stopped pursuing a regulation for establishing “rules of the road” for the nationwide health information network (NwHIN) based on feedback it has received, according to Mosquera.
Once the department was made aware that federal regulation could slow development of health information exchanges just as those activities are starting to emerge and pick up steam, “perhaps more than is widely appreciated,” according to Mostashari, it seemed imperative to shut it down, Mosquera revealed.
ONC in May asked for public comment on a possible approach for rulemaking to spell out “conditions of trusted exchange,” including safeguards and technical and business practices. ONC wanted to receive broad input before issuing a proposed rule, he said, Mosquera reported in another story.
The goal was to ensure that all systems are using similar languages that are capable of communicating with each other, “key to developing a healthcare system where different physician groups can collaborate on patient care,” as Jeremy Duca noted.
Edited by
Amanda Ciccatelli
