Looking for help from veterans (again)

We’re working on a story for FCW about the Department of Veterans Affairs “Blue Button” Web application that allows veterans to download their personal health information from the department’s MyHealtheVet site.

We’re looking for veterans who have used the VA’s Blue Button to share their opinions about the application’s usefulness with the FCW community. If you’ve given this application a try, you can use the Comment button below to tell us about your experience.

One veteran who checked out the application and wrote about the experience on a blog last fall reported being distinctly underwhelmed by the experience. “Here’s the cream that floats to the top, the icing on this cake, the best of the best; If you download and install the Blue Button to your personal computer, you will be able to securely access and download and print and share all the data that you yourself put in to the system,” wrote Jim Strickland, a veterans’ advocate.

Since then, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services launched its own Blue Button application on its MyMedicare.gov website. That feature lets 47 million Medicare beneficiaries view, download and print their medical records.