For nearly a decade, the federal government has been trying to find ways to make medical records more accessible for Medicare and Medicaid clients. The initiative is known as Blue Button. Earlier this year, that initiative introduced a new version of Blue Button—Blue Button 2.0. It's now easier for Medicare patients to access their health care data and also to share it.

To get a better idea of what this transparency could mean for health care consumers, we spoke with Allison Oelschlaeger, Chief Data Officer at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services with the federal government, and Meg Dryer, the Vice President of Consumer Experience at Cambia.

When Peggy Maguire’s father was diagnosed with lung cancer at 48 years old, it came as a complete shock to her family. They did everything they could to fight the disease, treating him with aggressive radiation and chemotherapy. However, they felt as if “his final days were very medical in nature” and felt residual guilt afterwards, wondering if there was something they could have done differently.

Peggy's experience has fueled her passion to improve awareness of what palliative care is and how it can change the way people living with serious illness - and their family caregivers - experience health care. In this interview with StoryCorps, Peggy shares her story with Dr. Tony Back from the University of Washington.