AHIMA pushes Blue Button
The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) announced an initiative to encourage its 67,000 members and Component State Associations to adopt Blue Button technology to boost consumer access to personal health records.
The announcement was made at the association's annual convention in Atlanta. The Blue Button tools were launched by the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2010 to help veterans access and exchange their personal health data in a standard, consistent manner. Since then, other private and federal agencies have implemented the tool.
Last month, Lygeia Ricciardi, director of consumer eHealth at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, said nearly 500 healthcare organizations have joined the Blue Button Pledge Program. She said the organizations could make the data-sharing technology available to more than 100 million individuals.
"The Blue Button campaign aligns perfectly with AHIMA's mission of making health information available where and when it's needed," said AHIMA CEO Lynne Thomas Gordon.
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.