From the HealthIT.Gov website: "Blue Button" is a way for you to get easy, secure online access to your health information. To "Blue Button" means you can "download your health data" so you can use it to improve your health and be more engaged in your healthcare. As Americans, we each have the legal right to access our own health information held by doctors, hospitals and others that provide health care services for us. But many of us don't, either because we don't know we can, or because we're not sure what to do with our health information once we have it. Until recently, most medical information was stored in paper files, so it wasn't very easy to access or use anyhow. But all that is changing as more health care providers (doctors and hospitals) adopt electronic health record systems and other health information technology (health IT). Patients will have more opportunities to get access to their health records electronically and to engage with their clinical teams about their medical records.

From the Federal Trade Commission website: A thief may use your name or health insurance numbers to see a doctor, get prescription drugs, file claims with your insurance provider, or get other care. If the thief’s health information is mixed with yours, your treatment, insurance and payment records, and credit report may be affected.

If you see signs of medical identity theft, order copies of your records and check for mistakes. You have the right to see your records and have mistakes corrected.

From the AHRQ summary page: This project, one of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Accelerating Change and Transformation in Organizations and Networks (ACTION) contracts, developed, implemented, and evaluated a short message service (SMS) intervention. The intervention targeted HIV-positive men who have sex with men (MSM) and who were at least 25-years-old. The aim of the messages was to: improve adherence to medication regimens; improve attendance at appointments; reduce risk-taking behaviors; enhance social support, general health and well-being; and increase involvement of individuals with their health care.

Objectives from the AHRQ summary: The main objectives of the project were to: 

1. Conduct a thorough review of existing literature, paying close attention to work that has been completed on innovative uses of text messaging in health communication strategies.
2. Develop and implement an SMS-based intervention to improve health care quality and outcomes by providing tailored health communication messages to HIV-positive patients who are treated in ambulatory care settings.
3. Conduct a process evaluation on implementation and determine the feasibility and potential for implementing the intervention in other ambulatory care settings.
4. Conduct an outcome evaluation that focuses on patient satisfaction and the impact of the intervention on targeted knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, intentions and behaviors, health care quality, and outcomes measures.

mFHAST implication: Messaging targeting special (protected class) populations can be done