"Blue Button" Technology Pushed to Give Patients Instant Access to Medical Records

The Connecting for Health survey found that 83% of the public have never asked for their records in electronic format. And the majority of physicians surveyed said patients rarely (27%) or never (67%) have asked for electronic records.

Josh Lemieux, Director of Health at Markle, thinks the lack of interest could be because the concept of downloading medical records as easily as one would download a song is too foreign for most people to grasp. Patients are used to a process of making a formal request for their records, paying a nominal fee per page to have them printed, then waiting several days to receive them. The idea of reducing that process to the act of pushing a button seems too simple -- and dangerous, he said.

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