White House 'fellows' to work on Blue Button functionality

The White House named 18 Presidential Innovation Fellows to work on five projects aimed at the use of technology to improve federal government processes. One of those five projects will be the Blue Button for America project to help Americans to download their own health information electronically. Three of the fellows--Henry Wei, M.D., a practicing doctor and informatics expert in New York; Ryan Panchadsaram, the founder of San Francisco-based health startup Pipette; and Matt McCall, an information systems expert from Baltimore--will spend six months in Washington, D.C., working on the project, according to a Government Health IT article. "We have to change attitudes," National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari said at an event touting the fellows. "We have to know that you can get it, that it's not against HIPAA to ask for your own information. We have to have more people asking for a copy of their own records." Article