UPDATED 15:20 EDT / MARCH 19 2015

Humana eyes APIs as key tools for revolutionizing health care

Humana headquarters, Louisville, KY

If you think application program interfaces (APIs) are just a tool for geeky software developers, think again. In the age of Big Data and mobility, every company is potentially an information provider, and APIs provide a secure and relatively simple way to selectively expose data and programs.

They’re one tool that Humana, Inc., the $48 billion Louisville, KY-based managed health care company is using to deliver improve the lives of its 13 million subscribers. People are taking a more active role in managing their health care needs, and market and government mandates are driving healthcare concerns of all kinds to look for ways to streamline delivery. Data is at the core of these efforts.

“We want to meet consumers where they are already, not require that they come to a Humana app to get Humana information,” said Paul Friedman (below left), director of IT at Humana. “The ability to expose that through APIs to a partner makes us easy to work with.”

The online dictionary Whatis.com defines APIs as “software intermediaries that make it possible for application programs to interact with each other and share data” in a secure and manageable fashion. Companies can expose APIs to share application functionality and data in a controlled way without throwing open the gates to software and databases. They can also closely monitor what information is accessed and who sees it.

Humana has licensed technology from Apigee Corp. to manage and track the interfaces it will expose as its API initiative, which is still in the early stages, rolls out. Friedman spoke to SiliconANGLE about potential applications in healthcare.

Paul Friedman, director of IT, Humana“We have a wealth of data in claims, biometrics and other clinical areas that we can make available in a de-identified bulk fashion for entrepreneurs in analytics,” he said. For example, information about subscriber claims can be overlaid on geographic data to identify regional variances in health care quality or combined with behavioral data to assess the impact of lifestyle decisions. Those are just a couple of the many potential Big Data applications of a data trove the size of Humana’s.

Data sharing is key to transforming health care. Businesses, nonprofits and government agencies are constantly inventing new ways to analyze health records in order to discover patterns that improve quality and efficiency. Insurance companies and healthcare providers are generally eager to support these efforts with anonymized information.

Humana uses Web services to combine data from multiple internal sources and legacy systems. APIs are one of the endpoints on that process to expose data outside the company. Using the Apigee platform, Humana can identify and authenticate partners and verify that appropriate contracts are in place. Access to data and processes can be tightly controlled.

Customers are another constituency. They’re increasingly asking for access to their own information in a format that’s convenient to them, and electronic health records now make it possible to share information selectively with care providers as needed.

Humana at Home is a program that designates personal care advisors to stay in regular contact with patients so that they can manage their own health without unnecessary visits to the doctor. The company says Humana At Home members have 42% fewer hospitalizations and 56% fewer hospital readmissions.

“The opportunity to bring together consumers and their physicians in new ways is a very powerful thing that will help us change how we deliver health care,” Friedman said.

Using APIs, customers will be able to access their health records from wherever they are and selectively expose information according to need and their own comfort levels. That cuts down on paperwork and speeds treatment.

Humana’s IT organization is working with the company’s Digital Center of Excellence (DCoE) to optimize the consumer experience. “APIs play very much into that,” Friedman said. “The DCoE is helping us identify what data is valuable to expose. They represent the voice of the business.”

Naturally, security and privacy are paramount in an industry that is tightly governed by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). “We go to extremes to make sure we’re HIPAA-complaint,” Friedman said. “We take it very seriously and take a conservative posture. We’ll leverage Apigee to ensure that thresholds don’t get exceeded.”

Not so geeky, right? At the end of the day, it’s all about sharing information to improve quality and customer experience without breaching strict security and privacy requirements. Humana takes an even higher-level view. “We aim to improve the well-being of the communities we serve,” Friedman said. “If we can do that by making data available to others, then it’s a win-win.”


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