Automated Blue Button, Patient Engagement Are Health Camp Hot Topics

At HealthCamp Boston, patients and patient advocates took over the health information discussion, reciting "e-Patient Dave" deBronkart's 3-year-old mantra: "Gimme my damn data."

Patients increasingly are demanding access to their health information, and federal initiatives also call for greater patient engagement. At HealthCamp, one of several so-called health IT "un-conferences" where attendees set the agenda after a structured introduction, deBronkart wasn't present in the flesh, but he contributed his own virtual keynote. It helped fuel the event's accompanying intense Twitter debate that was just as significant to the conference as the in-person dialogue.

With meaningful use stage 2 mandating that physicians push patient engagement, the Automated Blue Button Initiative (ABBI) became conference attendees' focus to help accomplish that goal. Originally, the Veteran's Administration hatched the Blue Button idea to empower veterans to quickly get their VA treatment data into the hands of civilian health care providers...