Healthcare APIs: 3 Ways APIs Differ in Healthcare vs. Enterprise

The recent enforcement of new rules to encourage the freer flow of healthcare data mainly through application programming interfaces (APIs) has jolted providers and payers into action to meet interoperability standards.

However, the rush to comply with the new requirements and avoid penalties may blind them to the subtleties and complexities of healthcare contexts as well as the significant differences between building APIs in this space versus for enterprises.

As major investments in health tech companies show, APIs will be the future of health information exchange (HIE). These interfaces are emerging as the “backbone” of the digital health economy, with payers, providers, and healthcare technology companies expecting them to “become the glue that binds healthcare together”.

But if healthcare organizations do not take an industry-specific approach to API adoption, collective efforts to relieve the healthcare system of high administrative costs and information silos may suffer a setback.