Blue Button+ is software that allows patients to access and transport their medical records digitally. Once they have their healthcare information, Blue Button+ makes it possible for them to share the information with all of their providers. In August 2013, Get Real Health announced that the Blue Button+ data exchange standard was available in their award-winning InstantPHR™ patient engagement software platform. Get Real Health’s Blue Button integration project led to the company receiving an award from ONC-sponsored Blue Button Mash Up Challenge, which prompted vendors to create user friendly interfaces to download and display Blue Button data.
In the video below, Andy Payne, Get Real Health’s Manager of European Operations, discusses the traction that the Blue Button movement is getting not just in the U.K. but in the European Union (E.U.) as well. According to Payne, “it’s all about not reinventing the wheel but reusing what’s already there.” By adopting the Blue Button concept in the U.K., patients will have the same ease in sharing information as in the United States. “Get Real Health can bring its experience to clients on both sides of the Atlantic,” says Payne. “Blue Button will solve the same [patient data access] issues in the U.K. that it does in the United States.”