Over the past few weeks, several large U.S. pharmacies and grocery stores have committed to participating in the Blue Button Initiative. The Blue Button initiative is a partnership between health care and the federal government that is intended to allow individuals access to their own electronic health information. Self-access of personal health information will allow consumers the ability to share information with health care providers, caregivers and others with the goal of better healthcare management.
Blue Button was initially launched to allow veterans the ability to access their health records through a patient portal. The program has been expanded to under the Department of Health and Human Services, which as released a set of technical guidelines to help providers present their data in standard machine-readable formats.
Many large consumer companies, including Walgreens, CVS Caremark, Rite Aid, Safeway and Kroger, have signed up to participate in the Blue Button Program. These groups say they are committed to working over the next year to standardize prescription information to make access to information more available and convenient for consumers. Once implemented, Blue Button allows consumers to go online and download individual health records. A list of participating organizations will be available soon at http://www.healthit.gov/bluebutton.
