With the ONC focused on key mandates to enable true health data interoperability, the promise of opening up medical data to patients is coming more into the forefront through APIs.

Historically, the healthcare industry has been slow to adopt APIs, and stuck to Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), which was pioneered in the 1960s. According to a recent VentureBeat article, this is all about to change.

Specifically, the article discussed the key changes that will drive this over the next couple of years, including:

• A Payer-to-Payer Data exchange, which will require health plans to share data with other plans when a member transitions to a different health plan

• A No Surprises Act to address unanticipated medical bills for emergency services and out-of-network events

• The Prior Authorization rule, which builds on ongoing changes to improve prior authorization processes

• The Transparency in Coverage rule, which will give consumers access to pricing information through an internet-based self-service tool, while requiring most group health plans and health insurance issuers to disclose price and cost-sharing information

With this new frontier opening up, there will be a rise of new players in the health data sharing API sector, especially as the demand for data will increase as consumers become comfortable accessing their personal health information using apps.

One critical element to note is that there are already industry players that have been offering health data exchange solutions for many years. 

For example, the RosettaHealth team worked closely with the ONC in defining and deploying standards, creating reference implementations, and establishing the fabric of interoperability that is expanding across the industry today. As a result of this legacy, currently more than ten million health records move across the RosettaHealth platform per month.

The RosettaHealth HealthBus platform leverages technology, server-less, and cloud infrastructure to provide scalable, secure information transport, data wrangling, and orchestration services – removing development time, cost and maintenance of in-house infrastructure.

For healthcare systems, HIEs, ACOs and even technology and telehealth providers seeking to integrate health data exchange capabilities into their offerings, it’s good to remember that RosettaHealth has the legacy and expertise to open the door to true health data exchange.

RosettaHealth can assist with any health information challenges you might have, book a free consultation with one of our interoperability experts.