“If patient engagement were a drug, it would be the blockbuster drug of the century and malpractice not to use it,” Leonard Kish.

The use and awareness of Blue Button as a consumer engagement tool continues to skyrocket and we need your commitment to be an active partner in the Blue Button movement.

The Blue Button Pledge Program is working to ensure a future in which individuals can download and use their healthcare data to become more active partners in their healthcare teams. The program is working with over 450 organizations, including:

• healthcare providers
• insurance companies
• patient advocacy organizations
• technology companies

We know more engaged consumers and patients translate into better health outcomes, greater efficiencies in care and higher patient satisfaction – all information that a fully realized Blue Button program can provide to users.

But, for this momentum to continue, we need you.

We need your help to accelerate the Blue Button Movement
We have already issued guidelines enabling data holders to participate in the structured exchange of health information.

Released last February, the Blue Button Plus (BB+) Implementation Guide gives providers, hospitals, payors and retail pharmacies, among other data holders, a technical roadmap for:

• Giving consumers and patients access to their health information
• Creating tools that will allow consumers to share their information with other individuals or services they choose

Healthcare organizations implementing the BB+ guidelines will meet Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements, but will also have the opportunity to participate in and create a more interoperable and efficient healthcare system, which improves patient outcomes in a cost effective manner.

Here’s How to join the Blue Button Movement:

1. Raise the flag for Blue Button: If you are a Data Holder Organization (provider, payor, lab, pharmacy), give us your Blue Button stats – number of consumers/patients that have access to their health data and number of actual downloads.

• Regardless of whether actual download rates are high or low, we want to know so we can feature you in the Pledge Program Annual Report that will be released on September 16th.
• If you are a Data Holder or a Non Data Holder organization (consumer advocacy organization, developer, employer, consultant, etc) and you have a good story to tell about how someone you know is using Blue Button or how you are promoting it, please send it our way!

2. Get on the Blue Button Hub: Our Blue Button team is developing a new consumer facing website (the “Blue Button Hub”) that will enable consumers to find out which of their providers and insurers are using the Blue Button, and then how to use that information. Whether you’re using Blue Button to give consumers access to their data or providing an app or tool to make it useful, please contact us if you’d like to be included on the Hub.

3. We will be updating our FAQs for Blue Button on our website. If you have questions you would like to see added or addressed, please let us know. Here is a link to the current FAQs: http://www.healthit.gov/patients-families/blue-button/frequently-asked-questions

4. If you have a new idea or application for Blue Button, let us know. We would be interested in working together.

Please let us know what you’re up to so we can learn about you and hopefully solve problems together. You can reach us at bluebutton@hhs.gov.