Government Healthcare Policy, Business and Technology

The Industrialization of Health IT

Healthcare Informatics: I was talking with a colleague recently about interoperability when he casually remarked that healthcare IT (HIT) is emerging from the preindustrial age and that Application Program Interfaces (APIs) and web services will industrialize data exchange. He made the case that APIs are revolutionizing healthcare in the same way that the adoption of interchangeable parts transformed manufacturing, economies and the world. It’s a brilliant analogy.

In the mid-18th century, Frenchman Honoré LeBlanc suggested that manufacturing firearms could be greatly improved by adopting interchangeable parts. The idea was picked up by Thomas Jefferson while in France and carried back to the US. In 1798 Eli Whitney convinced the US Congress he could use this approach to manufacture firearms for the US military. He eventually produced over 25,000 firearms in a relatively short time.

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