The Blue Button is a platform that allows patients to access, view, and download their personal health records online. Multiple Federal agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Veterans Affairs, have adopted this system to serve their beneficiaries. Additionally, numerous health plans and personal health record vendors across the United States have pledged their support for Blue Button. Data obtained through Blue Button-enabled platforms can be used to generate portable medical histories, promoting seamless communication among healthcare providers, caregivers, and trusted individuals or organizations.
By 2013, Blue Button had gained widespread adoption, enabling users to download their data in a human-readable ASCII format. In January 2013, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT introduced an implementation guide to help data holders and developers support automated data exchange through Blue Button+ compliant applications. Blue Button+ enhances consumers ability to access and share health information in both human-readable and machine-readable formats, enabling integration with third-party applications for more versatile use. You can find Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), as well as Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) as leading implementations of Blue Button.