Markle Foundation Releases Blue Button Video To Show Promise And Potential Of Consumers Access To Their Own Health Information

To help consumers, providers, insurers and other health data holders see how providing the ability for people to download their health records can improve health and health care, the Markle Foundation today released a new video showing the power of blue button technology.

The four-and-a-half minute video debuted at a consumer health IT summit at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services in Washington, D.C. Through the stories of three veterans, it illustrates how much this simple tool helps people keep track of their medical information and the value that the blue button offers to both patients and providers. Markle hopes the video can be an important educational tool to help data holders understand the value of the technology and appreciate its importance to patients.

The Markle Connecting for Health public-private collaborative conceived the idea for the blue button download capability at a January 2010 meeting. The idea was then embraced and developed as an innovative tool by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Today, over one million people, including veterans and non-veterans, use a blue button to download their personal health information.

"Information access is a critical building block to helping patients make better decisions, improve their health, and get better care," says Laura Bailyn, Senior Director, Markle. The Markle Connecting for Health collaborative envisioned the blue button as a broadly available tool for patients and beneficiaries on the secure websites of medical practices, hospitals, insurers, pharmacies, laboratories and information services. To make the blue button technology reliable and trustworthy, the group also has developed a recommended set of privacy and security practices for its implementation.

To learn more about the blue button technology, visit our website at www.markle.org or visit www.bluebuttondata.org.

Contact Andrew Peters (301) 280-5728 or [email protected].