The Office for the National Coordinator of Health IT (ONC) is continuing its push to increase awareness of the “Blue Button” concept. The Blue Button concept is a symbol for an easy way for a patient to electronically view, transmit, and download their health information. ONC is asking people to create a short approximately two minute video mentioning Blue Button, and encouraging others to learn more about it by visiting, www.healthIT.gov/bluebutton.  

The Blue Button Video Contest will run though Nov. 13, and ONC says it won’t require specialized equipment. The winner will get their story on HealthIT.gov along others who have tried to inspire the usage of health information technology.

This continues the trend from ONC to get Blue Button on the minds of everyone in healthcare and beyond. A few weeks ago, Farzad Mostashari, M.D., the national health IT coordinator, publicly challenged vendors to adopt the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)’s Blue Button initiative. The Blue Button allows veterans to easily view, download, and transmit (VDT) their health information into a single, portable file. Also, the VA had recently announced the Blue Button initiative had reached one million patients.