It’s been just about three weeks since Practice Fusion announced our participation in the Health 2.0 Developer Challenge. Our plan to open up an API and invite teams to connect patient-driven data to our EHR system in real-time seems to have struck a chord with the health IT community and we’ve been impressed with the response.
We now have 24 teams competing to connect patient data to our EHR platform. A few highlights from teams that have posted their entries online:
- Team Razoron, an innovator in medical bar-codes, aims to connect health data from devices and mobile applications to Practice Fusion.
- Team Stanford Stepper is a student on summer break, also interning on the Chicago stock market, who hopes to create an Android app connected to our EHR.
- Team BodyTrace aims to connect their GSM-enabled scale and weight loss system to Practice Fusion.
- Team Nimbus wants to plug in other PHR and EHR systems to Practice Fusion.
- Team Fusionators (gold star for the name and logo) aims to connect HealthVault and other PHR systems to our EHR platform.
These entries showcase the demand for platforms than can serve as an “iPhone” for the diversity of health 2.0 “apps” that have been built over the past few years. It’s something we had long hypothesized at Practice Fusion and nice to see as a reality.
The entries also represent a step toward what could be a fairly large change in medicine. Not only can Electronic Health Record systems replace the paper workflow in a medical office, but they also have the power to gather crucial data directly from patients in a way that is usually only seen in a hospital setting. For example: an ambulatory physician “prescribing” a smart phone mood-tracker application to a patient just diagnosed with depression. Then tracking those results real-time in the patient’s chart as medications take effect and reviewing with the during their next appointment. What do you think?
It’s not too late to form a development team and participate in the Practice Fusion API Challenge. If you enter today, I can send you API access keys this afternoon. There are also established teams looking for additional members – so email healthchallenge@practicefusion.com if you want to join a team.
Emily Peters
Practice Fusion EMR
