CommonWell plans APIs to expand use of exchange services

Codes will alert providers when patient data is available or pull info from charts, says Jitin Asnaani.


Several members of CommonWell Health Alliance, a collaboration among health information technology vendors to cooperate on improving interoperability, will build new application programming interfaces to expand services to providers using the data exchange.



Eight CommonWell members have committed to developing a Notifications API, enabling providers to be alerted when data on their patients is available on the CommonWell network. The initial participating vendors in this program include athenahealth, Audacious Inquiry, CareMerge, Cerner, Health Gorilla, OmniSYS, PatientPing and Philips Wellcentive.

Also See: CommonWell Alliance a boon to interoperability progress

CommonWell has 9,800 provider sites committed to using its core services, and about 5,000 sites are live. “Our members want to do more and know they can do it here, so we’ve secured the processes, guidelines and commitments to jump-start their progress,” says Jitin Asnaani, executive director.

Several vendors are building an API to help providers gather information from clinical charts that patients need when seeking life and disability insurance coverage. These include Alumai, athenahealth, Cerner, Mana Health, Social Security Administration and WoMBA, a medical bank for patients to deposit and access their data.

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In another initiative, APIs being developed will create policies to enable providers not using CommonWell-enabled electronic health record systems to have access to the CommonWell network via their own EHRs. Participating vendors include Cerner, Redox Engine and RelayHealth. Because data exchange across the nation is a primary goal of CommonWell, vendor members need to make sure providers get access to data, says Niko Skievaski, CEO at Redox Engine.

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