Five Major Drug Chains To Adopt Blue Button Prescription Standards

Five major national pharmacy chains with a total of more than 20,000 stores throughout the country have signed on to the Blue Button health information sharing initiative pioneered by the Veterans Affairs Department in 2010, the White House said in a blog post.

CVS, Caremark, Kroger, Rite Aid, Safeway and Walgreens signed on to use the standard Blue Button format for prescription data, according to Nick Sinai, deputy chief technology officer at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Adam Dole, a Presidential Innovation Fellow at the Health and Human Services Department. The National Association of Chain Drug Stores, which represents companies that operate 41,000 pharmacies, also pledged to adopt the standard.