I wrote about a machine learning specific API event a couple weeks back, and today I wanted to highlight the growth of conferences dedicated to FHIR, or the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources. FHIR is larger than just it’s API, but it is one very important example of how APIs and open industry API specifications can help move forward the API conversation in large industries.
As part of my healthcare API research, I bookmarked HL7 FHIR DEVDAYS 2017, a conference dedicated to standardizing healthcare APIs, and increasing interoperability across the global healthcare system. I went through the three-day schedule for the conference, following speakers on Twitter, and learning more about what being presented when it came to healthcare interoperability–expanding my awareness of what is going on when it comes to connecting healthcare systems and pushing forward this important API definition.
FHIR is right there with PSD2 for banking. While not perfect examples, they are the two most significant examples we have when it comes moving forward an API standard for a large industry that are critical to our society. I don’t have the time to become an expert on every detail of FHIR or PSD2, but I do think it is important as an API professional to understand what is going on in these communities. Much like we’ve done with the API sector with the API Strategy & Practice Conferenc, we are going to need more industry level API-focused conferences to emerge, helping industries come together and hammer out a common API definition, as well as the services and tooling that will be putting these definitions to work on the ground across the API economy.
