Kaiser Permanente Launches Open API
Today, on stage at Health Datapalooza in Washington, DC, Kaiser Permanente, a Rock Health partner, announced the launch of its first application programming interface program, InterchangeSM. Initially, Interchange will make Kaiser’s public facility and location information available for third-party developers to integrate into apps. This includes location, hours of operation and specialty information for Kaiser Permanente’s hospitals and medical offices, encompassing over 600 facilities. Additionally, in the future Kaiser plans to increase the number of securely accessible public data sets to include more health and wellness data, health plan data, brand-related data, and research publications. Personal health information will not be made available externally via API technology.
“We know how powerful timely access to full and accurate information can be in health care. We see it every day with our electronic health record. Empowering and engaging consumers through data rich applications is effective in moving towards total health management. Interchange by Kaiser Permanente is another opportunity to engage members in their health; when, how and where they want it. We can’t do this in a vacuum, partnerships are key. Through API technology, we can co-create and focus on developing apps that support the total health experience, not just one aspect of it,” said Madhu Nutakki, Vice President of Digital Presence Technologies.
Kaiser Permanente has a long history of using health IT to transform patient engagement and care delivery. The announcement of their API is a public reaffirmation to their commitment to supporting both innovation and openness in health data. Their EHR Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect connects 9.1 million people to their health care teams, and over 4 million patients use their patient portal My Health Manager to view clinical information and lab results, making it the most widely used PHR system.
By providing developers with an easy and secure connection to Kaiser Permanente’s public data, KP hopes to shorten development time, support quality apps that are accurate and effective, and expand the variety of health-management apps available to consumers.
Using Interchange is free of charge. The global Interchange API rate limit is 2 transactions per second and 200 transactions per hour per Oauth token. It is 1,000 transactions per hour per API Key for an Interchange API where Oauth is not needed. The global rate limit for each API Key is 5,000 transactions per day. Developers can visit developer.kp.org to learn more and access Interchange by Kaiser Permanente.