New MEDITECH EHR API – An Interview with Niraj Chaudhry

The EHR API has been a hot topic lately. Many healthcare organizations and startup companies are looking to EHR vendors in order to connect applications that exist outside the EHR with the EHR. Years ago (2012 to be exact), I wrote that the EHR is the database of healthcare and with all of these APIs coming out, we’re seeing that come to fruition.

The good news is that EHR vendors are finally starting to embrace this viewpoint as well. Many of you have probably read Colin Hung’s article that looks at 2 EHR vendors and their APIs. Many of you probably saw the announcement of MEDITECH’s new app development environment called MEDITECH Greenfield. It’s great to see MEDITECH launching an API for developers who want to engage with their Expanse platform. To learn more about this new platform, we sat down with Niraj Chaudhry, Director of Development Advanced Technology Division from MEDITECH.

What’s the motivation for MEDITECH to launch Greenfield?

Interoperable, open architecture EHR platforms that promote sharing resources for collective growth are critical for driving innovation and progress in today’s healthcare paradigm. By offering a space for mobile app development, MEDITECH is adding more capabilities and value to our customers’ EHRs and driving efficiencies for better community outcomes. Our customers will be able to enhance the EHR experiences of their providers, patients, and consumers with innovative apps available on any mobile device.

Greenfield is a natural extension of what we’ve done with MEDITECH Expanse and reinforces our commitment to a mobile, web-based EHR. We are excited about working with third-party developers and increasing our visibility with the creation of apps to augment Expanse.

What data will developers be able to access through Greenfield?  Is it a read-only environment or will developers be able to write back to MEDITECH using the Greenfield API as well?

Currently, our testing environment includes a list of available Common Clinical Data Set APIs and associated documentation. These APIs support GET methods and so give read-only access to the data. Developers can register now to get started. More APIs will be added to the Greenfield in future which will support other methods such as PUT and POST, and so will allow the ability to write data back to the Greenfield environment.

Will Greenfield only work with Expanse or will it work with other MEDITECH products?

Currently, MEDITECH Greenfield is available to MEDITECH Expanse customers.

Are there costs associated with companies participating in Greenfield (ie. signup and/or usage)?

There are no costs to sign up, access or use Greenfield.

What type of promotion will you do for companies who choose to leverage MEDITECH Greenfield in their application? What are you planning to do so MEDITECH users learn about new partners?

In the future, we plan on highlighting select (or “preferred”) mobile apps that we feel add significant value to the MEDITECH platform. This is still in the very early stages and business models for how we will list or promote apps are being discussed.

Will any company be able to sign up for Greenfield or will you restrict it to a certain number of companies or certain types of companies?

Any interested developers can sign up for access through a secure login process here.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

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