Healthcare data interoperability presents both challenges and opportunities. Seamless flow of patient data across systems enhances patient care, streamlines operations, and ensures compliance with regulations. SoftServe, in partnership with Google's Apigee HealthAPIx and healthcare data engine (HDE), is making this vision a reality.

Apigee, a Google product, provides a robust API management platform that seamlessly runs on various cloud environments, including hybrid and multi-cloud setups. Its purpose is to accelerate the development and deployment of essential digital solutions critical for businesses.
HealthAPIx is a streamlined solution for healthcare organizations, including hospitals, clinics, health plans, and life sciences to effortlessly collaborate with app developers and health data partners. Together, they can create innovative digital services using Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) APIs.

Apigee HealthAPIx accelerator benefits

Reduces risk during care transitions: Enhance the effectiveness and security of transition between in-patient and out-patient care throughout the healthcare continuum.
Delivers patient-centric digital services: Deliver personalized wellness and prevention advice to individuals who are at risk.
Improves chronic condition management: Enable effective management of chronic health conditions by easing collaboration among patients, physicians, and healthcare providers.

Apigee HealthAPIx accelerator and Google healthcare solutions benefits:

Improved patient experience: The Apigee HealthAPIx accelerator allows healthcare organizations to build custom applications. Patients can securely access and manage their healthcare information, enhancing their engagement and knowledge of their care.
Enhanced data sharing: With Apigee HealthAPIx accelerator and Google Healthcare Solutions, healthcare organizations securely and efficiently share healthcare data between providers, payers, and patients. This allows for better care coordination and improved patient outcomes.
Increased efficiency: Healthcare organizations use APIs to streamline processes and automate tasks, reducing burdens on providers and improving efficiency. Google Healthcare Solutions are scalable and reliable, enabling organizations to handle complex data management with ease.
Strong security and compliance: Healthcare data is sensitive and requires careful management. The Apigee HealthAPIx accelerator provides security features like identity and access management and encryption. Google Healthcare Solutions meet strict regulatory standards, including HIPAA compliance.
Flexibility and customizability: The Apigee HealthAPIx accelerator offers customized pre-built APIs for healthcare organizations to develop applications and services that provide the best patient care. Paired with the scalability and flexibility of Google Healthcare Solutions, organizations have the tools to adapt quickly to changing needs.

Four essential use cases

1. Achieve FHIR compliance with existing APIs

To comply with U.S. healthcare legislation, AdvancedMD integrated FHIR, a new set of rules and specifications, into their interfaces. They expanded functionality and supported tailored backend systems using HealthAPIx, a well-designed tool for seamless integration with FHIR interfaces via Apigee. This ensured compliance and paved the way for future AdvancedMD FHIR API exposure.

After analyzing the APIs and Apigee FHIR implementation, we:

Customized HealthAPIx components
Developed new functionality, including proxies and shared flows
Scaled communication features with BE
Improved and customized the developers' portal for practitioner and patient authentication
Considered internal AdvancedMD security approaches
Used reusable components easily implemented in other customers' systems

2. Securely manage patient data

The client needed a patient application to manage medical data, including self-observation forms, and collect client data for their study. The FHIR API was securely exposed using Google Apigee platform, specifically Apigee X, implemented on the client's GCP. The Google healthcare acceleration pack was migrated to Apigee X, expediting platform configuration and API proxy development, including the healthcare developer portal, proxies, and related functionalities.

The FHIR API was launched by application developers in just a few weeks, thanks to the pre-built functionality of the Google healthcare acceleration pack. The SoftServe Apigee team delivered APIs within a week, and three weeks after the project commencement, the APIs were exposed. External authorization modules were customized based on Azure B2C.

3. Enhance patient care through GP connect and NHS solution

The client, a U.K.-based company, provides medication support to patients at home. Previously, carers collected medication data on paper, resulting in inconsistencies and slow processes. This affected service reliability and patient wellbeing.

To enhance patient care, the client digitized the process using SoftServe's GP Connect capabilities, specifically the access document feature. By connecting the client's digital system to the GP Connect GetStructuredRecord API, carers could retrieve essential medication data. This empowered them to deliver accurate and prompt care, significantly improving efficiency and effectiveness. The client enhanced the overall patient experience.

Enhance patient care through GP connect and NHS solution

4. Streamline healthcare data interoperability with HealthAPIx and HDE integration

A centralized patient data repository (PDR) was used to share healthcare data throughout the client’s organization. This technical component allows for the ingestion, exportation, and real-time interaction of data by systems within the client's health platform. The PDR is the definitive source of both clinical and non-clinical data within the client's cloud tenant.

To meet the specific healthcare data requirements of the client's partners, more data repositories were established. These include the payer, supplier, and provider data repositories, which cater to diverse needs such as analytics, reporting, and payment. This diagram shows the full solution:

Streamline healthcare data interoperability with HealthAPIx and HDE integration

SoftServe conducted a successful integration test between HDE and HealthAPIx in our lab, resulting in:

Fully operational HDE environments
Implementation of OBB controls through a security audit
Seamless transmission of data to the FHIR store
Established data pipelines with file mapping and merging capabilities
Easy accessibility of data in BigQuery for further analysis

The Apigee platform includes the developer portal, with HealthAPIx accelerator connected to the GCP healthcare FHIR data store. Healthcare API proxies integrate with an existing OpenID provider for user authentication. External consumers can access FHIR APIs and SMART (substitutable medical applications and reusable technologies) applications can use the API with full SMART on FHIR support. The developer portal is easily accessible for application developers.

Business advantages and results

Healthcare organizations enhanced data interoperability by combining Apigee HealthAPIx and HDE. This solution streamlines the development and maintenance of secure, FHIR APIs that meet industry standards. Regulatory compliance is simplified, enabling full use of healthcare data for analytics and other use cases.

HealthAPIx, powered by open-source technology, enables seamless interoperability using industry standards like FHIR and SMART. It leverages Apigee and Google Cloud's HDE as a backend, simplifying API-level access to healthcare data for organizations. HealthAPIx provides pre-built interoperability APIs that align with the CMS Interoperability and Patient Access final rule. This empowers payers, providers, and technology vendors to meet regulatory requirements outlined in the 21st Century Cures Act by the ONC, HHS.

Google Cloud HDE combines clinical data from diverse health systems, forming a comprehensive patient record. This empowering tool equips healthcare providers with a holistic view of their patients' health information. The HDE seamlessly ingests and maps data from various sources, including HL7v2 messages, CSV files, and FHIR formatted flat files. Data can be ingested either in batches or near real time, offering healthcare providers flexible data management options. Once ingested, HDE transforms and stores the data in the FHIR R4 format, which can be accessed through a REST API with FHIR formatted payload. Additionally, the data can be analyzed through BigQuery for insightful processing. This innovative solution empowers healthcare providers to access their patients' longitudinal health records, leading to enhanced care delivery and informed decision-making.

Apigee HealthAPIx is the perfect solution for healthcare providers, payers, and technology vendors. With its adherence to regulatory requirements and user-friendly interface, it offers an ideal combination of compliance and ease-of-use.

An experienced partner

For a comprehensive healthcare interoperability solution, look no further than HDE and Apigee HealthAPIx. HDE excels at aggregating and reconciling data from diverse sources, using FHIR R4 formatting and cloud configuration tailored specifically for healthcare. This powerful solution enables healthcare providers to streamline data management and enhance the accessibility of patient data.

Watch the 30-minute webinar to learn how SoftServe helped AdvancedMD achieve FHIR compliance with existing APIs, resulting in faster time-to-value, lower costs, and enhanced interoperability.

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