The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is extending its Blue Button program, which allows patients to download their healthcare information, to include the ability for U.S. military veterans to download medical images.
On February 20, the newly established VA Center for Innovation issued awards totaling $22 million to 13 companies that submitted proposals to an industry competition. One of those was to Ray Group International of Washington, DC, which submitted a proposal to develop a Blue Button Extensions Medical Imaging app.
Ray Group will create an app that gives veterans the ability to view and download their medical images via Blue Button for personal storage. They will also be able to directly transmit selected images to their physicians who are not affiliated with VA medical centers.
The VA Blue Button program, which became nationally available in October 2010, allows military veterans to download their personal health information from their My HealtheVet account. Blue Button was developed in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the U.S. Department of Defense, and the Markle Foundation's consumer engagement work group.
My HealtheVet provides an online personal health record, and depending on the account type, offers features such as email appointment reminders and secure messaging to communicate with healthcare providers.
