The Healthcare industry is one of the first industries that started using technology for keeping track of data. Healthcare API has allowed employees to access data immediately when required, helping in making decisions faster and improving the health of the masses. This leads to a greater life expectancy and better delivery of healthcare services. To focus on the needs of patients, it is important to build a system that allows healthcare professionals to access accurate data instantly.The amount of data to be captured has grown considerably, and valuable data points get hidden and isolated. The data which is generated by the population is not easily accessible to the mass. The data is kept for use only by the healthcare institutions and providers and is accessible only by some employees.Healthcare API companies provide solutions to similar problems and make the data available securely to employees of the healthcare sector and the population alike. This provides efficiency and helps take innovative technological decisions for the health benefit of the mass.

Excess Data

The amount of data to be maintained has increased largely, and healthcare providers record and analyze data in EMR systems to make decisions. This data is often separated within the application or the institution. The data is not available for general usage in any consumable form. The Healthcare sector does not want to share its data outside of its scope.The healthcare providers use separate ERM platforms for different domains such as cardiology, pediatrics, diabetics, and so on. But, a consolidated data system is needed to get an overall view of all patients. Protective public policies do not allow the free sharing of data. Therefore, data from ERM should not be shared, leading to the restriction of data within healthcare applications. Healthcare API considers the privacy policy, and the ERM platforms that are integrated with API adhere to the privacy standards.

How Can API Marketplaces be Useful?

APIs are seen as digital connections in today’s technology-oriented world. Healthcare API has evolved greatly and FHIR standards are maintained in clinics for data access. API marketplaces allow stakeholders to innovate and provide solutions to the discoverability problem of data. Marketplaces influence the health clinics to contemplate how they can organize and share data, making it available through open APIs.Healthcare API connects healthcare data consumers with data producers. It permits organizations to develop, publish and manage APIs while stressing security and managing analytics and governance. Data entitlement at a gateway can ensure healthcare providers with safe data-sharing features.

Healthcare API Marketplace Stakeholders

Producers of API include developers, designers, and testers who design, develop, share and examine healthcare APIs. The API scope for internal and external use is defined by this group. They also identify the restrictions and entitlements.Platform owners maintain the parts and aid communication between API consumers and also give feedback on the APIs by consumers to the providers. They are responsible for developing the community and providing platform support around the API marketplace.API consumers derive data from the Healthcare API by accessing the data. They include healthcare startups, hospitals, and health-driven initiatives that want to improve the healthcare scenario.

Parts of Healthcare API Marketplace

API marketplace has three main component sections.

• API management
• Developer portal
• API activities

API Management

API management, being the most significant, involves the runtime, security layer, governance layer, consent management layer, and analytics layer. The gateway is the initiation point for the platform, which connects with the real data backend EHR system. It fuses with the security layer to provide token-based security and entitlement abiding by the privacy policies. Strict governance, publishing, and maintenance over the development portal are required due to the sensitive nature of the data shared on the healthcare API exchange. The API governance layer manages the governance models, dependency analysis, and policy management and controls how APIs are exposed.After the APIs are published, they must have the potential to manage, supervise and measure the APIs that have been published, which is done by the analytics part. The consent management layer looks after workflows that ensure that proper consent is given for sharing, storing, and consuming data. This depends on decisions based on machines or humans.

Developer portal

The developer portal promotes the APIs for consumption, sanctioning all interested groups to discover data streams and master the art of consuming them. It also concerns the data visibility problem of healthcare institutions. Specialized healthcare systems having different domains can be integrated into a central developer portal and is managed by the hospital, or provider organization.For building a successful healthcare API marketplace with properly functioning technical components, healthcare API companies should focus on the following:

• Workshops can be organized for the API consumer, allowing them to learn how to get started with APIs.
• APIs allow innovation in the healthcare sector, encouraged by incentivized hackathons.
• The innovative projects, start-ups, and analytics dashboards can be showcased.

Products based on Healthcare API

Depending upon the consumption pattern, several healthcare API products have been developed. In the domain of healthcare, the patterns of consumption involve developing products such as registration API products, financial API products, scheduling API products, ancillary API, clinical API, public health API products, IoT API products, and so on.Registration APIs handle functions related to registration on EMR systems. Scheduling APIs are utilized in making appointments, setting reminders, checking appointment slots, and canceling or rescheduling appointments. The transactions taking place between the healthcare providers and the patients are managed on the financial APIs. The clinical data exchange is managed through clinical APIs. The information which remains isolated from the clinical functions is monitored by ancillary APIs.These products are developed by healthcare API companies like DigitalAPICraft, which are instrumental in helping healthcare institutions to keep a record of huge datasets, and manage, monitor, and publish them for bringing efficiency to the healthcare sector.