Systems | Development | Analytics | API | Testing

The API landscape is evolving rapidly with some protocols rising in popularity while others fade away. The journey that started with SOAP has now evolved into other protocols like REST, GraphQL, gRPC, AsyncAPIs, and more. With the emergence of large language models (LLMs), we are now in the era of AI agent/assistant integrations with APIs. LLMs are power utilities. However, they operate without contextual awareness.

As data privacy regulations grow more complex, particularly in the European Union, organizations are under increasing pressure to ensure their data remains within jurisdictional boundaries. Many EU-based businesses, especially those in regulated industries, are legally required to store and process data within the EU to comply with frameworks like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

When building complex, interdependent projects, local testing and debugging often become challenging. This is a common situation for most internal developer platforms and large-scale deployments. Replicating a deployed environment locally is inherently complex, especially when the code depends on external services or specific platform integrations.

The push for digital health innovation and patient-centered care has driven major updates to the ONC Health IT Certification Program. One of the most impactful updates is G10 certification (G10), a requirement that ensures health IT systems offer standardized, secure, and interoperable APIs based on FHIR and SMART on FHIR specifications. G10 is a critical compliance requirement under the 21st Century Cures Act Final Rule, issued by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard designed to overcome the inherent limitations of large language model (LLM)-powered agentic applications. While these agentic applications excel at reasoning, summarizing, and content generation, they are fundamentally disconnected from the real world. They cannot access live data, interact with private systems, or execute tools on behalf of users.

CMS-0057-F is a set of regulations introduced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It was created to address the urgent need for better interoperability across the healthcare ecosystem in the U.S. For a deeper understanding of this regulation, we encourage you to read Enhancing Interoperability and Streamlining Prior Authorization: A Look into CMS-0057-F.

The era of generative AI is upon us, and large language models (LLMs) like Claude are demonstrating incredible potential to revolutionize how businesses operate and interact with customers. However, to truly unlock this potential, AI needs secure and standardized access to the wealth of information and services locked within enterprise systems. This is where standards such as Model Context Protocol (MCP) come in, offering a powerful way to make enterprise resources AI-consumable.

API gateway federation refers to the integration and management of multiple API gateways within a unified control plane. This approach allows organizations to use different API gateways, which may be from various vendors or tailored to specific environments (e.g., cloud-based, on-premises), while centrally managing their configurations, policies, and monitoring. Figure 1: API gateway federation with a unified control plane.

The Provider Access API enables seamless access to patient health data for providers who have both a contractual relationship with the payer and a treatment relationship with the patient. Under the CMS-0057-F Final Rule, impacted payers are required to make the following data available through this API: claims, encounters, and prior authorization information similar to what is shared via the Patient Access API.