We sat down with Chris Owens, VP of Digital Apps at WELL Health to learn more about apps.health and the history behind it.
Why was apps.health created?
When I joined WELL Health a little over two years ago, the EMR group was dealing with a dilemma – what to do with third-party integrations in OSCAR?
This was a question that I had also been struggling with in my previous role as Executive Director of OSCAR EMR. At the time, there was little known about many of these applications or how they were integrating with OSCAR, which presented a significant risk to OSCAR users and the personal health information in their EMRs.
While one option was to restrict clinics from using any third-party applications, we wanted to embrace the openness of OSCAR and build something special. For months, we worked with third-party apps developers to understand the purpose their applications served, how they integrated with OSCAR, and the privacy and security policies they have in place to safeguard personal health information. After more than six months working with our original partners, we launched apps.health in September of 2020.
What is the vision of apps.health?
The vision for apps.health has always been simple – provide WELL EMR users with a curated list applications and services to improve their clinic’s efficiency and ultimately patient outcomes. As such, we have established a program for third-party app developers to ensure that their solutions provide clinical value and meet best practices for privacy and security. The developer program has been extremely successful, as we have onboarded more than 20 new applications since we originally launched the apps.health site.
That being said, the success of the apps.health program has introduced new challenges. As the number of available applications has grown, it became more difficult for users to compare the different applications available to them.
For this reason, we are excited to have launched v2 of the apps.health marketplace this month. The new marketplace allows users to filter applications by several different parameters including category, price, and jurisdiction so users can find the right application for their clinics. Partner profiles have also been updated so that application details (privacy and security, hardware requirements, etc.) are presented clearly and consistently, so users can easily compare similar applications.
Are there any other changes to the apps.health Marketplace with the recent launch?
In addition to the improved navigation, we are also excited to introduce clinical services to apps.health! You can learn more about these non-EMR services in a recent blog post, however, they are essentially applications and services your clinic can use that are not dependent on an integration with your EMR. The reason we are so excited is that this brings us one step closer to our vision of making apps.health the one-stop shop for all your clinics needs.
What can clinicians do if they cannot find a product or service on apps.health that meets their clinics needs?
While we feel that these changes are a significant step forward, we are always looking to provide our EMR customers with new products and services. If you cannot find a solution on the apps.health marketplace that meets your clinic’s needs, we encourage you to reach out to us at clinics@apps.health and let us know as we are here to serve you.
