The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) Pledge Program was launched in September 2011 to catalyze and support organizations at the vanguard of empowering individuals to be partners in their health and health care through health IT. Taking the pledge is voluntary, and does not represent any endorsement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or any other part of the Federal government. Members of the Pledge Community benefit from participation in activities including in person meetings and webinars that provide networking, updates from the federal government, and opportunities to share and learn best practices from and with peers and potential partners. A wide variety of organizations participate in the Pledge Program, including “Data Holders” and “Non Data Holders,” who make pledges ranging from directly providing electronic consumer access to health data, to developing tools that make it useful, to promoting a public shift in awareness of and attitudes about consumer engagement in health.

To bring together two complimentary activities and in recognition of the evolution and growth of the Blue Button vision, we have changed the name of the “ONC Pledge Program” to the “ONC Blue Button Pledge Program”. The terms of the original pledge and the purpose of this community have remained largely the same. We welcome additional members to the community and the movement it supports. Although it is not necessary to join the ONC Blue Button Pledge Program to use the Blue Button term and logo, we encourage organizations to join us.

In addition, we are encouraging (but do not strictly require) existing Data Holder organizations in the Pledge community to take their existing pledge to the next level by providing a way for patients to view, download and share their health record in a format that is both machine and human readable through Blue Button. See details of the Pledge terms.