Blue Button

White House Issues Challenge For Electronic Medical Record Redesign

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As Designers could be given an opportunity to build an app and participate in potentially life-saving projects through the White House’s latest contest seeking the best and brightest talent to help further technological innovation in the federal government.

As our colleagues at AOL’s TechCrunch report, candidates are invited to join the White House’s Health Design Challenge to give the electronic medical record a much-needed redesign. Right now it’s “an abomination” – all courier font and hard to read. The challenge winner gets $25K and their design rolled out to 6 million VA patients and open sourced for all the world’s doctors. Keep reading →

 /  Published November 15, 2012 at 9:00 AM

White House Spotlights Energy Data Tools To Help Drive Innovation

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White House officials brought together dozens of senior government leaders and private sector entrepreneurs Monday, including Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu, to demonstrate how energy data is fueling new products and services aimed at promoting greater energy efficiency in America.

The “Energy Datapalooza“was the latest in a series of White House-sponsored events designed to showcase innovative applications using government data – this one focused on the energy sector – hosted by Federal Chief Technology Officer Todd Park. Keep reading →

 /  Published October 1, 2012 at 6:02 PM

VA Officials Chart Expanded Vision For Blue Button

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What began as a simple way to help veterans view their personal health information over the Internet is continuing to snowball into an electronic health record phenomena known as the Blue Button, now used by more than a million patients nationally and gaining wider adoption by certain health care providers.


The Blue Button is a simple piece of software code that the Department of Veteran Affairs developed two years ago, that lets veterans obtain a copy of their medical information electronically.

VA and health industry officials are now exploring ways to expand its adoption, as well as the types of information patients can access.

At a recently concluded consumer health IT summit, Peter Levin, chief technology officer for the VA described how the Blue Button got started and the impact it has had since in serving veterans.

But he and Dr. Farzad Mostashari, who leads the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, also highlighted their vision to grow Blue Button’s user base from “from one million to 10 million to 100 million to the entire country.”

“We want to turn the Blue Button from a noun, to a verb,” said Levin, to a “thing that you do…when you see the Blue Button, you know…you’re going to get your health information.”

Mostashari said he expects immunization records to be accessible via Blue Button in the coming weeks.

But he and Levin said they hope to avoid having distinct types of records added individually.

“You don’t want to do this one at a time,” said Levin. “You’d like to have a methodical way, of not just (adding information) inside government, but most important of all, is doing it outside of government.”

Looking ahead, Mostashari said that it is also important to ensure two things happen:

“First, making the information more usable. But not only making sure that its always human readable, for the patient and the family to have immediate access to the information, but also making it machine readable so developers can develop new tools and services.”

 /  Published September 28, 2012 at 12:01 PM

People To Watch: Matthew McCall

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Matt McCall was selected as a Presidential Innovation Fellow for the Blue Button program as part of the new White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program. The program pairs top innovators from the private sector, nonprofits, and academia with top innovators in government to collaborate on solutions that aim to deliver significant results in six months.



The Blue Button program is aimed at providing easy access to health records by enabling individuals to securely download their own health information via a simple text file, such as current medications and drug allergies, claims and treatment data, and lab reports. The Department of Veterans Affairs – working with the Department of Health & Human Services, the Department of Defense, and others – are collaborating on the project.

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This is one in a series introducing 18 Fellows working on five initiatives that are part of the White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program.

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McCall believes that open standards, data, and software have the potential to redefine the way in which patient-centered healthcare is delivered in this country, and that Blue Button is a critical step towards realizing the potential of this transformative concept. Keep reading →

 /  Published September 25, 2012 at 11:00 AM

People To Watch: Henry Wei, MD

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Henry Wei was selected as a Presidential Innovation Fellow for the Blue Button program as part of the new White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program. The program pairs top innovators from the private sector, nonprofits, and academia with top innovators in government to collaborate on solutions that aim to deliver significant results in six months.

The Blue Button program is aimed at providing easy access to health records by enabling individuals to securely download their own health information via a simple text file, such as current medications and drug allergies, claims and treatment data, and lab reports. The Department of Veterans Affairs – working with the Department of Health & Human Services, the Department of Defense, and others – are collaborating on the project.
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This is one in a series introducing 18 Fellows working on five initiatives that are part of the White House Presidential Innovation Fellows program.

_______________________________________________ Keep reading →

 /  Published September 24, 2012 at 10:00 AM

White House To Announce Presidential Innovation Fellows

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The White House announced it plans to introduce the inaugural members of its Presidential Innovation Fellows program in a ceremony Aug. 23, at 10 a.m. (EDT) that will be streamed live on WhiteHouse.gov/live.

“This new initiative is bringing in top innovators from outside government to work with top innovators inside government to create real and substantial changes that will in a very short time frame benefit the American people, save taxpayers money, and help create new jobs,” said U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Todd Park. Keep reading →

 /  Published August 21, 2012 at 4:05 PM

Mobile Milestones: Blue-Button Health Data For The Masses

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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is trying to do for the public what the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) did for veterans by building on the VA’s popular “Blue Button” application, allowing patients to get their medical records electronically on their mobile devices.

The “Blue Button” mashup challenge will be designed to bring “health information to the masses,” said Farzad Mostashari, MD, the national health information technology coordinator. It will allow anyone whose doctor keeps computerized records to get those records on mobile devices like phones, tablets and laptops. Keep reading →

 /  Published August 10, 2012 at 12:44 PM

VA’s Peter Levin: Openness Key To Mobile Security

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As chief technology officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Peter Levin is responsible for the cybersecurity of the largest medical system in the United States and the second largest federal agency.

His job involves helping to facilitate and secure the flow of personal health information among the VA employees at hundreds of hospitals, clinics and offices nationwide, and making that information available electronically to the 21.9 million veterans and their families who depend on the VA for their medical care. Medical professionals and veterans are increasingly seeking to access that information via mobile devices, which raises new concerns about privacy. Keep reading →

 /  Published May 1, 2012 at 11:30 AM

Blue Button Innovation Expanded To All Federal Employees

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Millions of federal employees, retirees and their families will soon be able to benefit from a software tool developed by the Department of Veterans Affairs that allows individuals to download their personal health data from the websites of their health plans.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said it has asked all health insurance carriers who participate in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) to add the tool, known as the “Blue Button” and its functions to personal health record systems on their websites. OPM made the request Dec. 19, 2011, but announced the move publicly Jan. 18. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 20, 2012 at 1:21 PM

Feds@Work: VA’s Peter Levin Pursues ‘Art Of The Possible’ In IT Innovation

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As chief technology officer of the Veterans Affairs Department, Dr. Peter Levin isn’t tasked with making sure that routers are maintained or seeing that the network stays up. Far from it. You could say he’s more of a technology conceptualist.

Rather than “chief technology officer”–a position at VA to which he was appointed in 2009–he might have been more appropriately titled “chief innovation officer.” Keep reading →

 /  Published January 19, 2012 at 9:00 AM
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