APIs Provide Interoperability Across the Healthcare Ecosystem
APIs are at the heart of modernization initiatives, especially in healthcare where they enable providers, patients, payers, and third-party services to connect to applications and systems and share data. APIs serve two main functions in healthcare: connecting physicians/healthcare providers with patient data more easily and rapidly and streamlining healthcare operations.
Standardization efforts such as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources or FHIR have further accelerated API adoption and usage by providing a specification or framework for exchanging healthcare information electronically.
APIs provide interoperability across the healthcare ecosystem, enabling systems to collect, centralize and report health data in a single patient record, connect to insurance companies to determine coverage or payment, share physician-reported data across multiple providers, access medical research data, coordinate provider staffing, and more.