“Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) CTO Ed Simcox said at MeriTalk’s Cloud Connect 2019 event today that HHS has melded its IT principles with cloud and data analytics capabilities to develop an application program interface (API) that gives citizens power over their healthcare data.”
“The API is called CMS Blue Button 2.0. It takes a variety of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) data – including beneficiaries’ Medicare coverage, drug prescriptions, primary care treatment, and cost – from 53 million Medicare beneficiaries and gives those individuals ‘full control over how their data can be used and by who,’ Blue Button’s website states…”
“Blue Button has been made possible, Simcox said, because CMS is shifting its data enclave into the cloud for the first time.”
“CMS created a developer environment – an application development shop – with the tools HHS had available in the cloud. And then it had 1,100 app developers sign up to create applications individuals can download to use and control their healthcare data.” Read the full article here.
Source: HHS API Gives Patients Power Over Their Data – August 20, 2019. MeriTalk.
