Interoperability in healthcare ensures systems communicate seamlessly, with the ultimate mission of optimizing patient outcomes. Achieving this goal is only possible when the B2B arm of the health industry steps up to improve supply chain management, predictive maintenance, and more through end-to-end data interoperability. What’s the best medicine to make that happen? The API-first approach of composable commerce.
For a very long time, achieving data interoperability across the vast healthcare industry seemed like a distant dream. While the ability to exchange data seamlessly across various systems to provide the best possible patient outcomes continues to be a challenge, I’ve witnessed first-hand the incredible strides healthcare businesses have made in that direction.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a turning point. As health providers and businesses were forced to embrace digitization, many other catalysts started pushing boundaries. US regulations like the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) now require health organizations to convert data into the FHIR standard to improve the quantity and quality of data shared with patients. Initiatives in the private sector, such as those led by Google Cloud, help harmonize disparate healthcare datasets with pre-configured data maps and pipelines, even converting different clinical data formats into the FHIR standard.
The benefits of better data interoperability for better patient care are clear. Physicians can piece together a more complete picture of a patient’s health to provide top-notch care, so much so that 86% of physicians believe that better data interoperability can significantly cut their time to diagnosis.
When it comes to healthcare commerce serving patients, data interoperability plays an equally essential role. For example, when a doctor prescribes or orders a medical device, such as a blood glucose monitor for a patient, secure data exchange with an e-prescription system or electronic health record (EHR) is crucial to facilitating the transaction.
What about data interoperability in B2B healthcare commerce? From my experience, its impact on manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors might not be immediately clear but it’s just as crucial — and can directly affect patient care.
Vital Signs for Data Interoperability in B2B Healthcare Commerce
Overall, I see three main areas where data interoperability in B2B healthcare commerce has started to flourish.
Let’s start with supply chain management. Simply put, when a healthcare manufacturer providing critical medical supplies is able to offer real-time inventory visibility, hospitals and healthcare institutions can prevent stockouts or overstocking of pharmaceuticals, PPE, consumables and lab equipment. Such visibility also enables B2B suppliers to automate procurement and reordering processes for their customers and streamline the entire supply process. The result? By maintaining adequate stock levels, health systems ensure patients are always taken care of without missing a beat.
Leveraging procurement efficiency gains is exactly what a public health system in Europe, a customer of ours, is spearheading at the moment. The care provider is optimizing its B2B supplier portal to roll out an intuitive and fully interoperable digitized commerce experience for procurement and supplies, ensuring that national hospitals and care facilities get the supplies they need at the right time. I’m excited to see how this digital commerce hub will improve procurement performance and reduce costs.
Predictive maintenance is another area where data interoperability shines in the B2B sector. Through IoT (Internet of Things) connectivity, alerts can be triggered when medical devices need servicing, ensuring that critical machines are always operational. This approach reduces equipment downtime, avoids service interruptions, keeps up hospital operating capacity and improves patient care by ensuring devices function properly when needed most.
Enabling Data Interoperability through APIs and Composable Commerce
As exciting as these possibilities are, many healthcare organizations still struggle with data interoperability. The answer to this challenge is to create bridges between different software programs so they can communicate without hurdles, something that APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are designed for.
No matter the commerce use case your business is exploring, an API-first approach allows for a unified ecosystem where a smooth flow of data enables fast decision-making for automation, efficiency gains and even personalization. In other words, APIs facilitate real-time and seamless synchronization of data and enable organizations to connect new systems and devices — such as IoT-enabled equipment or new supply chain platforms.
Composable commerce, with its API-first approach, is at the forefront of this movement. I’ve seen how it helps healthcare organizations break down data silos and reduce the risk of data duplication and inconsistencies. ACE Southern, a leading manufacturer and distributor in the oral surgery space, acknowledged how an API-first approach makes the exchange of information faster and easier: “We’ve offloaded all that complexity to commercetools. Everything is an API now.”
Furthermore, the modular nature of composable solutions means organizations can plug and play services at a moment’s notice; the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) being one of them. The use of AI algorithms combined with the API-first approach of composable further elevates data quality and accessibility, helping healthcare businesses predict trends, optimize operations and automate sophisticated B2B commerce journeys.
In the evolving healthcare landscape, data interoperability is more than just a technical necessity; it’s the backbone of better patient outcomes and more seamless B2B buying experiences. With APIs and composable solutions, we’re not just streamlining operations; we’re empowering the healthcare industry to operate more efficiently and ultimately deliver better care.