JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

As had been imagined in the initial launch of the SMART Health IT project, the Meducation team has expanded their product’s reach by relying on a universal, open API for integrations. The team estimates that one project manager can handle up to 20 simultaneous implementations. This case illustrates how a universal open API to patient and clinician-facing health IT systems supported and accelerated the commercial success for an innovative startup company. An “app store” for distributing innovative applications that readily integrate with EHRs, opens the clinical encounter and patient portals to third-party IT innovation and, because the apps are substitutable, market competition [1]. It gives end users a wide and ever-growing choice of technologies to use data generated by the healthcare system and patients at home. International support of a universal, open API that readily connects innovators to heath system data is a promising and generalizable approach for rapid diffusion of both free and commercial apps across health systems.