ONC demonstrates Blue Button Connector

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) demonstrated the Blue Button Connector at the Health Information and Management Systems Society annual conference in Orlando.

The Blue Button Connector is a website that links consumers and patients with their health data, and helps developers build compatible tools. The website also provides links to apps and tools that use structured health data, as well as links to providers that offer electronic access to data.

“This early release of the Connector website is an invitation to members of the growing Blue Button community to help to improve the website before it is more widely marketed to consumers and developers,” wrote Lygeia Ricciardi, director, office of consumer eHealth, ONC in a Feb. 24 Health IT Buzz blog post.

The process of obtaining data from providers was “time consuming,” she wrote; however, “we expect that in the near future consumers will be able to get their data directly from multiple sources via more seamless mechanisms.”

“The Connector is the first ever open data source delivered through an open API that makes transparent the health data that is increasingly available to the public, which we believe will help to fuel the creation of new products and services,” wrote Ricciardi. “This is part of a broader push for open data spearheaded by the White House to liberate both government data and voluntarily contributed corporate data to fuel entrepreneurship, create jobs and improve the lives of Americans in tangible ways.”