

Akido Labs (YC W15) Provides an API Layer for Hospital App Developers - mericsson
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/19/yc-backed-akido-labs-provides-a-standardized-api-layer-for-hospital-app-developers

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jrgoodner
Jared Goodner here (cofounder of Akido) - We're super excited to see what the
HN crowd can do with a RESTful API for hospital data! Check out our first blog
post for some very simple examples.

[https://www.akidolabs.com/blog/hello-
world](https://www.akidolabs.com/blog/hello-world)

~~~
falsestprophet
What do you think of Apervita.com, which is also a platform for working with
EHR?

They seem to want "health authors" (developers/scientists) to use their
"authoring environment" (locked in IDE/language... wow) to build "insights"
(apps) that are locked into their market.

I don't understand the virtue of that model unless they think that they can
achieve a monopoly on a lot of data. Is it possible they can?

~~~
jrgoodner
Hey @falsestprophet, thanks for reaching out!

I had been introduced to Apervita a little while back, and while I found it
intriguing, it didn't solve the problem I was looking to solve. From my
perspective, the biggest problem in healthcare right now is the lack of
interoperability between systems -- data within a hospital is frankly rather
locked up, inaccessible by reasonable means. This holds back a TON of _much
needed_ innovation in the space.

If Apertiva's platform is a means for spurring innovation, then I'm all for
it. My prediction is that health data access will hold them back, until Akido
is in every hospital across the country ;)

~~~
falsestprophet
I believe they are integrating with hospital systems and standardizing data
just like Akido presumably with the goal of getting into every hospital just
like you.

I'm sure both Apervita and Akido would love to have a monopoly on the data and
hospital network, but it doesn't seem like that is a guaranteed outcome. (So
this is perhaps merely a very good business rather than an amazing business.)

But, instead of simply offering an API like you they want
developers/scientists/doctors to build on a proprietary platform for a
proprietary market on top of their proprietary API.

So they're Akido + Google App Engine + Google Play for health.

These guys raised $18 million, so some serious people believe in the company.
But, I just don't understand the virtue of trying to lock all customers into
their "Google App Engine + Google Play".

No one in their mind would build a business on that if they could go with a
more open alternative, right? And now you are an alternative.

Though I think it would be pretty cool if you guys had an added offering that
made it easy for hospitals to buy little apps... um I guess something like
Apervita. :)

~~~
hhg2103
@falsestprophet -- we are right with you on being anti-vendor lock in and
supporting open standards. We want to enable healthcare systems to use their
data in whatever way they'd like and we think the best way to do that is to
keep everything as open and as standards driven as possible.

RE: Hospital apps, couldn't agree more. Keep an eye out!

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phren0logy
Speaking as a physician, I'm deeply heartened by any attention to health care
software from outside of the entrenched players.

Most current EMRs are execrable. Their difficulty is not only frustrating and
user-hostile, but potentially unsafe.

~~~
jrgoodner
@phren0logy We hear you!!

The Akido API was influenced by our experience as directors of Univ. Southern
California's D-Health digital health lab, where we constantly work with
physicians and admins to create better health IT software.

We saw that real innovation and improvement in health IT is prevented by an
extremely laborious and difficult "integration" process. We built Akido to
make sure it was the last solution to ever had to get "integrated"!

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brandonb
This is cool! I couldn't quite tell from the article, but do you see this as
an alternative to Prime and, if so, how is it different?

EDIT: One more question: the article says you've reached 200 hospitals
already. That's impressive. Are those signed contracts? Or verbal commitments?
Can you say a little about how you achieved that?

Good luck at demo day too!

~~~
jrgoodner
Thanks, @brandonb!! We think so too ;) We are seeing far more traction than we
expected - we're solving a very serious need!

Please shoot me an email at jared@akidolabs.com -- happy to talk more about
it.

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smanuel
Is Akido something like BlueButton+ [1] but which is used (about to be used)
by real EHR systems at real hospitals?

If yes, I'd love to give it a try.

[1] [http://bluebuttonplus.org/](http://bluebuttonplus.org/)

~~~
jrgoodner
Thanks for your question, @smanuel! It's a good one!

At this point in time, we're focused more on software/device vendor
integrations into healthcare systems. However, this strategy is aimed at
eventually making personal health records a reality.

With blue button, health providers weren't incentivized to adopt - it's just
not a high priority for health systems right now. However, if we could solve
the integration problem for health systems _while_ paving the way towards
personal health records incentive won't be an issue. The FHIR specs are the
latest step in the right direction! (We're big proponents of FHIR)

Akido holds real promise to enable personal health records in the near future
-- be on the look out!

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c0mpute
Congratulations! A welcome change in healthcare.

Are you building a relationship with the hospitals and clinics so that we
wont't have to talk to them, but just use your api to get and push our
patient's data?

~~~
jrgoodner
Hey @c0mpute - that's a very good question!

We _are_ building relationships with health systems across the country, but we
can't remove the need for you to talk to them. What Akido does is make
integration a non-issue - we turn integration into 'plug n play' from the
developer's and hospital's perspective. What this means for you is that your
sale to the hospital or clinic decision maker becomes far easier!

Please do note that the health system maintains _all_ control over who has
access to data -- this is VERY sensitive data, and it's extremely important
that access is tightly controlled, logged, and auditable. (Akido handles all
of that for the hospital)

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JamesSwift
When I put in my email and click 'Get Early Access', nothing happens and the
following is printed to the console (Firefox 36.0.1):

TypeError: t.toElement is undefined [developers.js:1:31160]

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joshpadnick
Is Akido Labs meant to be hired by hospitals to support easier integration
with vendors? Or meant to be used by HIT vendors to more easily offer
integration with different hospitals?

~~~
jrgoodner
Hey @joshpadnick, great question - It's both!

On one hand, Akido is a technology + service that offloads the entire
integration process for application vendors (analytics, patient engagement,
scheduling, etc!), lab/diagnostics vendors, and connected hardware vendors.

On the other hand, hospitals have a solution for integration that provides
more granular control over their data, and a far smoother integration process.

~~~
jrgoodner
I'd also like to add that it's a free platform for health systems :).

To clarify a bit, a hospital or clinic wouldn't really "hire" us -- Akido is
software that's implemented on-site or in the cloud, and is supported
remotely.

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daleco
Looks awesome!

If the Healthcare provider EHR is already compatible with FHIR. What incentive
do I have to use your API? Are you also hosting the Healthcare and patient
data?

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up_and_up
Nice Work!

I am part of a startup that needs this like yesterday.

Who can I email regarding this?

~~~
jrgoodner
Hey @up_and_up - would love to learn more about how you could use Akido! Shoot
me an email at jared@akidolabs.com and let's set aside a time for a
call/skype/coffee (depending on where you live)!

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buckbova
Is this supposed to replace an existing LIMS or be an API Layer over your
existing LIMS?

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jrgoodner
Hey @buckbova, thanks for your question!!

Akido doesn't actually replace anything - it's an API layer that lives above
any electronic health record (EHR) system, and provides a far more developer-
friendly and secure means for accessing data than the current state.

Feel free to check out our docs to see what you can do with less than 10 lines
of code!

[https://portal.akidolabs.com/v1.0/docs/getting-
started](https://portal.akidolabs.com/v1.0/docs/getting-started)

~~~
buckbova
Do you have a list of supported EMRs and how does the API communicate with the
EMR?

Is this a sort of translation from HL7 to web services API?

Edit:

I found the list of EHR software on the site.

In my experience working with a variety of these types of software is they are
all differently difficult and constantly changing. Ones like Cerner can be
completely driven by HL7, although not all are like this.

Will this be all hosted in the cloud, or on-site, or both with some
"connector" software? What's the cost structure and set-up fees like? Do you
have any customers yet?

Edit Edit:

I'm not exactly in the market for this, even though I'd love an API to sit
over all the systems we have already integrated including one large COTS LIMS
system, a custom LIMS built from scratch, and a third-party cloud system all
communicating via web services with varying degrees of functionality.

~~~
jrgoodner
I had stepped away from my computer (sorry!) - to answer your questions:

YES - it's a real pain to deal with all the different interfaces and
techniques required to obtain the data that you need.

However, as part of implementing Akido, we handle all of the integration and
maintenance for you (it's our expertise ;) )

We can implement on an on-site Virtual Machine, or as a cloud implementation
(our preference, of course).

Our cost structure is flexible at the moment (so we should talk), but it's
worth saying that we're a low-cost solution!

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lyyons
This feels pretty similar to Moxe Health, the Rock Health portfolio company.

~~~
hhg2103
Hi @lyyons, we are certainly not the first ones to spot that integration is a
pain point for hospitals and we have tons of respect for anyone trying to help
solve this problem. Its a big issue and there is a lot of work to be done.
While we do share common features with Moxe Health and others, what sets us
apart is our origins from an academic medical center, our commitment to
supporting open standards and our mission to enable hospitals to fully own and
innovate with their health data.

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unclesaamm
The demo widget doesn't work for me. It just says "null".

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hhg2103
Hi @unclesaamm -- Hugh Gordon here (another cofounder).

Thanks for pointing this out! We've fixed the site. Please let us know if you
are having other problems and thanks for checking us out :)

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yumraj
How does it compare with SMART/FHIR ?

~~~
jrgoodner
Great question, @yumraj - you can think of Akido as the infrastructure
required to run SMART on FHIR. Kind of like Heroku is to Rails, Akido is to
SMART on FHIR.

Make sense?

