Having been out on the front line of API storytelling since 2010 I can attest to the reality that you need a lot of stories to be told before people understand the digital resources and capabilities that they are already using on a daily basis. You can see the impact of a decades worth of storytelling within the open banking space, but when it comes to the healthcare space the absence of storytelling and the lack of awareness around APIs, standards, and regulation is evident.
It takes a regular cadence of storytelling over a number of years to penetrate the insulated layers between enterprise leadership and make them aware of the efficiency, revenue, and interoperability impacts of doing HTTP APIs well. At first, doing APIs always just looks like you are giving away something, but over time with the right storytelling, enterprise leadership begins to understand the control and opportunity that exists when standardizing your approach to digital resources.
Unfortunately a significant part of this type of storytelling is done by startups and paid for by their investors, but there are also a spectrum of other institutions, organizations, and government agencies who throw into the storytelling mix. We need one or two leading healthcare organizations and a regular cadence of startups to begin beating the same drum when it comes to the role that standardized healthcare APIs play in providing better outcomes for patients and healthcare providers–to help build the momentum needed.
Healthcare is next after finance, payments, and open banking when it comes to the need for standardization, but also the existing regulations, standards, and other work to provide more interoperable APIs. There needs to be regular waves of stories told that speak to what healthcare providers, patients, and other actors in the space are interested in, aligning the needs of the space with the technology, business, and politics of doing APIs, getting us to that future where more people understand the importance of doing HTTP APIs well.
