What is API Standardization?

What is API standardization?

As organizations are opening up their platforms and sharing data via APIs, they need to create a common language for interacting with one another. These standards can be developed by companies, groups or governments, often as part of an effort to modernize processes, strengthen data ownership, improve privacy and consumer protections or encourage competition.

Banking industry, for example, has established a set of standards to share data with third parties across the financial ecosystem, including the Financial Data Exchange (FDX) API. This is a market-driven initiative with limited government regulation, but it is a valuable tool for many financial institutions and fintechs that want to access their data quickly and cost-effectively.

Healthcare, on the other hand, is increasingly focusing on standardized APIs to help make it easier for data to flow between different healthcare providers’ systems. This type of industry-specific standardization, prompted by the need for a more unified way to access and use data in the future, is driving continued API development efforts throughout the industry.

In a recent survey by the ONC, nine healthcare organizations involved in biomedical, clinical, informatics, and pharmacological research were polled on the current state of API research success, potential challenges for future API research and ways to leverage standardized APIs. The results revealed that API standards, such as FHIR and bulk access APIs, could increase healthcare research efficiency, enhance collaboration among healthcare organizations and improve clinical and informatics workflows.