Innovation Award Winning iBlueButton Apps with Unprecedented Anywhere
Mobile Health Information Exchange Unveiled by Humetrix at HIMSS 12
SAN DIEGO, California -- February 14, 2012. Humetrix is pleased to announce that its President and CEO, Dr. Bettina Experton, has been invited to present Humetrix iBlueButton® award winning mobile health information exchange (“Mobile HIE”) solutions at HIMSS 12, at the Venetian Sands Expo Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The presentation will take place during the eCollaboration Forum on Thursday, February 23, at 10 AM in room Casanova 502. On that day at 1 PM, Dr. Experton will also have the pleasure of introducing Peter Levin, Ph.D., Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) who will be speaking on “The VA Approach to Health IT Innovation” in room San Polo 3503.
Dr. Experton’s eCollaboration Forum presentation will focus on the critical role the iBlueButton apps can now play to significantly accelerate access and exchange of health information at the point of care for optimum care coordination and cost effective care from fee for service care to ACOs. Humetrix’ innovative Mobile HIE apps capitalize on both the use of ubiquitous smart phones and tablets by patients and physicians, and the far-reaching Federal Blue Button® Initiative. The Blue Button Initiative announced by President Obama in the summer of 2010 provides for a powerful and common sense approach to health information exchange: giving individuals the ability to easily download their health summaries from patient portals and bringing their up-to-date information to their physicians, under their own control wherever they receive care.
Initiated by the VA, DoD and CMS, Blue Button has already been adopted by more than 750,000 Veterans, service members, and Medicare beneficiaries. Following the Federal government leadership and commitment to “Putting the I in Health IT”, more than 200 private organizations are now committed to "Putting the I in Health IT", which for many include the use of Blue Button on their portals (such as Aetna or RelayHealth). Additionally, by March 15, 2012, more than 200 private insurers participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) will be required to offer a Blue Button functionality to the over 8 million individuals covered by the FEHBP program.
The de-facto health summary standard offered by Blue Button is now deployed nationwide through the public and private sectors. The practical and rapidly scalable Humetrix iBlueButton patient phone and physician tablet apps for anywhere exchange of up-to-date Blue Button records, and under the patient’s direct control, offer powerful tools for immediate patient engagement and practical provider care coordination.
In December 2011, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Care IT recognized iBlueButton with an Investing in Innovation award for its Safe Transition of Care Challenge. iBlueButton indeed provides a powerful mobile HIE solution when providers are either not connected to the same HIE, cannot immediately query another provider system, or cannot yet securely email any other provider through the Direct protocol to retrieve critically needed up to date clinical summaries or tests results.
Available for use by all Veterans with a direct link to download the apps from the VA website since January 15 2012, the iBlueButton Veterans smartphone app lets Veterans automatically access, download and directly exchange their Blue Button records from MyHealtheVet and MyMedicare.gov with their physicians. With the upcoming new releases of the iBlueButton apps to be unveiled at HIMSS 12, Veterans, active duty military personnel and their families will also get this same functionality from the TRICARE Online portal. Millions of Medicare beneficiaries and other Americans using Blue Button enabled portals (such as the Aetna and RelayHealth portals) will also be able to benefit from the iBlueButton new releases.
The iBlueButton® apps break new ground in health information exchange and mobile health. Up until now, mobile apps have either provided:
| • | Patient-only solutions, for their sole use at home or on the go, and not useful at the point of care for practical and direct use by a physician during a patient encounter. |
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| • | Physician-only solutions with partial or in some cases full-featured access to single EMR systems. |
What Humetrix provides is an innovative combined app system for patients and physicians to use together during a clinical encounter to immediately access and exchange up to date health records. The system is comprised of the patient smartphone iBlueButton® or iBlueButton Veterans apps, and a companion physician tablet iBlueButton® Professional app which together allow the patient and physician to easily and securely exchange medical records at the point of care. Together these apps enable patients to serve as “mobile connectors” to their own records between physicians who may otherwise have limited ways of exchanging medical records in real time when caring for their patients in their office, or the emergency room. “iBlueButton truly delivers the I in Health IT”, says Dr. Experton. Patients should not be at the mercy of non-interoperable systems or slowly deploying connecting solutions and be passive recipients of provider to provider or provider to patient communication means. With iBlueButton, the “I” in Health IT means:
| • | “I” can immediately retrieve my multiple provider online records or insurance claim generated health summary so that |
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| • | “I” can directly communicate my update information to “My” doctors immediately when they and “I” need them so that “I” can receive the optimum and most cost effective care. |
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Twitter: @Humetrix, #Humetrix, #iBlueButton, #ICEBlueButton
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Media Contact
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