ONC Delays Launch Of Blue Button Connector Until Late February

The US Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health IT is slowing its rollout launch of a website meant to encourage patients to take a more active role in their own care.

ONC will wait until verifying that all the data on Blue Button Connector, a planned hub for consumers to find sources of health data to download as well as Blue Button Plus technology to facilitate it, is accurate, according to Lygeia Ricciardi, director of ONC’s Office of Consumer eHealth. “I want people on this site,” and she wants the information to be trusted, Ricciardi told MobiHealthNews after speaking at the Digital Health Summit at International CES in Las Vegas last week.

Ricciardi had said in September that ONC was targeting mid-January for launching the Blue Button Connector. As of Monday, ONC’s Blue Button site said the connector was “coming soon.” Expect a beta version to go live in time for the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in late February, Ricciardi said.