Blog Plato has an API – use it to enhance your practice

Everyone from your accountant to your patients are using software to manage their business – wouldn’t it be easier if these software could ‘talk’ to each other? With an API, or Application Program Interface, data updated in one software can immediately be reflected in others, eliminating the need to do double-entry.

APIs work by allowing you to push or pull data from one software to another. For example, you could upload a lab result to your CMS/EMR and automatically push that result to your clinic’s custom patient app via an API. Alternatively, you could have your patients key in their health status to a patient app and pull that information to your CMS/EMR.

Here are three ways Plato’s API can be used to enhance your individual or group practice:

• Build custom health screening reports – Your health screening center has some unique and proprietary insights on what metrics patients should be tracking to stay healthy. Why not build a custom reporting tool? This tool can pull data like lab results, triage data, and doctor observations from Plato and use them to generate custom advice tailored to the patient’s unique needs within your health screening report generation software.
  You can also pull out and trend data from Plato, so that patients are able to get a visual understanding of their health status. The best part of this approach is that your health screening tool will be proprietary to your organization – part of the secret sauce that will keep patients coming back to you. 
• Create a patient app – As experts on patient health, more doctors are creating patient focused apps. These apps can engage and educate their patients, or just help them keep tabs on their patients’ health. With Plato’s API, you can integrate the work you do for the patient at the clinic with the engagement you foster with the patient outside of it.
  
  Push data like lab results and diagnoses to the patient (along with your observations) to the patient, so they can understand their own health status. Even enable patients to track information like their current medications and last visit, so they can come in regularly for care if needed. 
• Enterprises, link key systems together – As an enterprise, you may be relying on many systems to run your organization – from dedicated accounting systems, to in-house procurement, to key marketing systems. Plato can be linked with all of these systems to make your work more efficient. For example, if your finance team uses a particular accounting system, Plato can automatically push data to it regularly via an API, so that you don’t have to do double entry. Or, if you’re using a marketing platform, Plato can push a list of patients who have agreed to receive email notifications to that platform, so you can email them on en masse.

If you’ve keyed data into one software, you shouldn’t have to key it again into others. Let Plato be a valuable node in your network of key software – sharing key operations data with your enterprise systems, or securely passing your patients’ data to them so they can view it and interpret it through your patient app.

You’re probably wondering how data flowing through two software can be kept secure. Here’s how: Plato’s API uses HTTPS and SSL certificates to transmit data in a secure manner from Plato to the connected software, and vice versa. HTTPS, which is a variant of the standard HTTP web transfer protocol, adds a layer of security on the data in transit, making sure that no one can ‘eavesdrop’ on or modify your data.

Additionally, when your app or third party software connects with Plato, it will use your API key to authenticate itself to Plato – making sure all sides are secure.

Running a practice is a lot of work, so we turn to technology to help us out. Putting all of these disparate parts together on one platform that can automate processes and streamline your clinic operations?

Now that’s the ultimate clinic assistant.

Find out more about how Plato can make your work day easier. Schedule a free demo today!