Fed Health Plans to Offer Blue Button EHRs

Federal employees, retirees and their families will soon be able to securely access their personal health data from the websites of their health plans, thanks to the rollout of new Blue Button technology, the Office of Personnel Management announced Wednesday.

While most federal health plans already offer some form of personal health records to their members, the new Blue Button technology will allow federal patients to have complete control over their health information and enable them to share the data with their health care providers, caregivers and other people they trust.

"Adding Blue Button will make these records more readable, more accessible and more useful to patients and families," OPM Director John Berry said in a statement. "This easy access to lab results, medication and problem lists, allergies, appointment data and wellness reminders makes care both easier and better."

Blue Button technology allows patients to see, download and keep their personal health data by clicking the blue button on a secure Internet site. The files are delivered in text files that can be downloaded, read, stored and printed on any computer without special software.

Blue Button technology already has been adopted by some 500,000 veterans, service members and Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services in just 14 months.

"Blue button empowers hundreds of thousands of patients with their own data," said federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra in a statement. "We want federal employees, their families and the general public to benefit from easy access to Blue Button downloads as it rapidly scales to become a routine service in the care delivery system."

A report issued by OPM in September found that 97 percent of all federal health carriers were offering some form of personal health records to their members. In addition, about three-quarters of federal health plan carriers already include medical claims or health record information in those personal health records, the report found.

OPM asked federal health insurance carriers in a Dec. 19 letter to research the Blue Button functionality and supply OPM with documentation on a strategy to implement the technology by March 15.

For more information on the Blue Button, click here.