Moving data around systems should be easy in this day-and-age. But in Healthcare IT systems, and especially in the NHS, it can be a real challenge. Recently I was asked about what I thought about this by the team at Sansoro Health.
Interoperability is far from a fun or sexy topic but the Sansoro Health website has managed to get 22 experts (me included!) to share our advice on the subject.
The question they asked us was simply:
“What’s the single best way to simplify interoperability in healthcare IT?”
Here is a snippet of what I had to say on the subject:
Open source tools are generally designed to be fully open and have built-in APIs which can easily be connected and integrated with other tools.
Take WordPress, for example, which comes with its own ‘REST-API’ out-of-the-box and can easily be modified to integrate with any external data source
Via sansorohealth.com
Open Source First
You can see the point I’m making here. Open Source, not just WordPress, is always a better choice because Open Source platforms/CMSs/whatever tend to always strive for open-ness and information sharing as default-goal.
We Love WP APIs
This is why our team love developing with the WordPress REST-API. It makes integrating WordPress with ANY other tool or system incredibly easy.
For more information on the REST-API in WordPress Check out the REST-API Handbook over at WordPress.org which covers the basics of how to get started extending WordPress using this modern and flexible option.
Back to the Sansoro Health article…
Here are some other interesting responses that stood out
A lot of people will blame politics, funding, or other issues, but the answer is security. Things that work independently of each other are more vulnerable. Open source standards is the best way to simplify healthcare IT.
Sia Mohajer @MohajerSia
The best road to interoperability in healthcare available to us today is to demand an open architecture from vendors and technology providers. Vendors should be technology-agnostic, have open APIs, and enable easy third-party integration.
Chris Wiegand @Jibestream
Have a usable, standardized API. The key word there is usable because while standardized APIs exist, most of them are an absolute nightmare to work with.
Dary Merckens
@gunnertech
You can read the rest of the replies on the Sansoro Health blog.
