{"id":5615,"date":"2014-02-07T12:15:43","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T17:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.healthit.gov\/buzz-blog\/?p=5615"},"modified":"2025-08-19T17:06:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T17:06:00","slug":"leading-pharmacies-retailers-join-blue-button-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthit.gov\/blog\/insights-updates\/leading-pharmacies-retailers-join-blue-button-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading Pharmacies and Retailers Join Blue Button Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today, as part of the growing movement to help customers access and securely share their own health information, several of the Nation\u2019s largest retail pharmacy chains and associations are pledging to support the Blue Button initiative\u2014a public-private partnership between the health care industry and the Federal Government that aims to empower all Americans with access to their own electronic health information.\u00a0These steps will help patients access their prescription information and further empower millions of Americans to better manage their healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept behind Blue Button is simple: consumers should be able to securely access their own health information and share it with health care providers, caregivers, and others they trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2010, with the support of the White House, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) launched the Blue Button initiative<\/a> to give veterans the ability to access and download their health records on a secure, online patient portal. Since then, the initiative has expanded and more than 150 million Americans today are able to use Blue Button-enabled tools to access their own health information from a variety of sources including healthcare providers, health insurance companies, medical labs, and state health information networks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An increasingly important part of the Blue Button initiative is making patient information available in secure, simple, standard formats to help spur the development of innovative consumer applications and devices that can help patients better manage their own health care and facilitate the electronic sharing of data with trusted partners, such as medical specialists who might not otherwise have direct access to relevant records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)\u2014with input from more than 70 organizations\u2014recently released “Blue Button+<\/a>“, a set of technical guidelines to help providers structure their data in standardized machine-readable formats.  And the vast majority of doctors and hospitals will be working to use the Blue Button+ standards beginning this year as part of their participation in the Federal Electronic Health Record incentive program<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In parallel, as part of today\u2019s announcement, the following companies are committing to work over the next year towards standardizing patient prescription information to fuel the growth of private-sector applications and services that can add value to this basic health information:<\/p>\n\n\n\n