How Easy Is It To Integrate Availity APIs Into Your Payer-Provider Workflow? Very!

How Easy Is It To Integrate Into Workflow? Very!

— Charles Webster MD ⎌ ()

[I am writing this blog post in preparation and support for the upcoming tweetchat Optimizing Payer and Provider Communications hosted by and (), at 1PM EST, Friday, September 30!]

The following (non-HIPAA sensitive) structured data was pulled across the Availity API () into this blog post via execution of PHP in real-time when you viewed this post in your Web browser. (API stands for Application Programming Interface.)

Member Info (JSON string)nn

Member Info (JSON object)

object(stdClass)#367 (6) {
[“firstName”]=>
string(4) “ZENA”
[“lastName”]=>
string(6) “MARDIN”
[“memberId”]=>
string(4) “H123″
[“gender”]=>
string(6) “Female”
[“genderCode”]=>
string(1) “F”
[“birthDate”]=>
string(28) “1942-09-15T04:00:00.000+0000″
}

Member Info

ZENA
MARDIN
Female
1942-09-15T04:00:00.000+0000
BCBSF
1234567893

Back when I was a CMIO/programmer, we integrated a lot of third-party services with our EHR. In fact, we were constantly contacted by vendors and customers to integrate with this or that partner. We asked two questions of ourselves. Does it serve a need? How easy is it to add to our IT workflows? Clinicians and business people answered the first question. Programmers answered the second.

What’s the best way to see how easy it is to integrate a third-party into your health IT workflows? By taking a quick whack at it. See how far you can get with only a minimum amount of effort. In other words, the proof is in the (eating of the) pudding. It’s the only certain way to tell for sure whether the pudding is tasty, or the integration is (potentially) easy.

Sometimes, over a long weekend, a programmer (sometimes, me) sat down with an SDK (Software Development Kit) just to take a wee keek (as the Scottish say), and showed up Monday morning with a working prototype! This put a very different spin on the first question. Instead of a manager saying, sorry, we already have too many other priorities, they said, how soon can you finish this so we can sell it…

So, this morning I logged into the Availity – Developer Center for Health Care APIs to take a whack at it. I wanted to see how easy and fast it is to pull structured data into this blog post, using PHP (in which WordPress is written). It didn’t take very long at all! At the beginning of this post you saw a subscriber JSON string, a PHP JSON object, and name, gender, birth date, payer, and requesting physician NPI.

By the way, here is some entertaining context! (At least to me…) I attended the AHIP Institute this spring and I did what I (almost) always do. I search every website of every exhibitor for evidence they use workflow technology (workflow/process/orchestration engines, editors, mentions of Business Process Management, and so on). I tweeted I was doing so and then I tweeted what I found.

In the mean time Availity is waving its Twitter hand and tweeting: us, us, us! If you are interested in healthcare workflow, you have just got to come talk to use about our API platform and how it’s used to improve payer/provider workflow. The following is from my post AHIP Institute blog post, AHIP Institute Trip Report: Business Process Management & Workflow Engines.

Availity

The following conversation was interesting because Availity wasn’t actually on my initial list. However, they saw me tweeting about AHIP vendors and workflow and basically demanded I come to their booth. I’m glad I did. As Mark Martin explained, they provide the APIs (and a portal) that can be consumed by workflow tech. In fact, if you think about it, even if you have the best workflow engine in the world, you still need data to achieve whatever strategic goal you set. Availity goes beyond currently, typically available standard APIs to empower necessary administrative workflow between healthcare organizations. I love it. Thank you for your enthusiasm, seeing my #AHIPinstitute tweets, and reaching out about this important topic.

+1 Chatted w/ Workflow, APIs, portals, : Who, What, Why, When, Where, How!

— Charles Webster MD ⎌ ()

When it comes to healthcare APIs, the proof is in the (eating of the) pudding!

Yum!

Thanks Availity!

On Periscope!