New Cures Act regulations establish API-based development and integration as critical to achieving improved healthcare data availability

Reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and seeking more effective ways to implement new functionality, healthcare enterprises of all kinds are looking to alternatives for prevailing development and integration practices

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Chilmark Research

Jul 28, 2020, 07:33 ET

BOSTON, July 28, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Unlocking value from the data scattered across healthcare communities was once a tantalizing opportunity. After COVID-19, it is an existential necessity. Chilmark Research's latest Market Trends Report, Open APIs in Healthcare: The Future of Data Integration, captures a market whose approach to data access and integration will be changing substantially in the coming years and introduces a subvertical within healthcare IT that anticipates a 16% CAGR through 2025.

APIs Are Still New in Healthcare
Outside healthcare, the ascendance of data access and integration facilitated by application programming interfaces (APIs) is the culmination of decades of technology evolution and implementation lessons with distributed applications. Across the SaaS landscape in particular, APIs have become the preferred method for accessing data and conducting transactions across applications and organizations. Developers recognize and appreciate the value of loosely coupling their applications and data, wherever each is located.

Inside healthcare, many enterprises are hesitant on the topic of APIs, seeing them as too big a leap from established, successful software practices. But they also recognize that eliminating the need for hard-coded interfaces that must be re-implemented every time an application or its underlying data changes will deliver higher programmer productivity and more-responsive applications.

Traditional Integration Methods Fall Short
Conventional development and integration approaches proved cumbersome and slow in efforts to contribute to understanding or responding to the current health crisis. Unlocking more value from the data scattered across healthcare communities is — post-COVID-19 — a critical element in clinical and financial renewal.

"Enterprises across healthcare were already wrestling with challenging market forces and government mandates," says Brian Murphy, the report's lead author and analyst. "Open APIs will play a central role for providers, payers, or any healthcare enterprises that intend to better utilize their data and pursue development efforts that make them — and the broader healthcare community — more responsive and adaptable to the demands of a post-pandemic healthcare system."

Developers Require Accessible Data
Developers find data wherever they can from among a large and confusing mix of data holders and associated vendors. This report identifies the sources where different kinds of health-related data are most likely to be API-accessible. It shows how APIs are already contributing to development and integration efforts across healthcare and estimates the much larger potential of widespread adoption.

This report includes detailed profiles on 20 public and private organizations and their offerings, including 1upHealth, 4Medica, Allscripts, Apple, Athenahealth, Availity, Blue Button 2.0, Cerner, Change Healthcare, Datica, Epic, Human API, Meditech, NextGen, NCPDP, Particle Health, The Sequoia Project, Redox, Surescripts, and Validic.

This report is available to select subscribers of the Chilmark Advisory Service or can be purchased separately. To read more, download a preview, or register for the follow-up webinar on August 11, 2020, please view the report page. Direct inquiries for purchasing the report should be addressed to John Moore III at [email protected].

About Chilmark Research:
Chilmark Research is the only industry analyst firm focusing solely on the most transformational trends in healthcare IT. We combine proven research methodologies with intelligence and insight to provide cogent analyses of the emerging technologies that have the greatest potential to improve healthcare. We do not shy away from making tough calls and are respected in the industry for our direct and thoughtful commentary. For more information, visit www.chilmarkresearch.com.

Media Contact:
John Moore III
[email protected]
(617) 823-7623

SOURCE Chilmark Research