NHS Digital has launched a new online community to provide support and help on integrating with its Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).
The platform aims to support the health tech community who are working to integrate systems with national healthcare services. NHS Digital is now inviting professionals to join the forum to ask questions, receive help, and share ideas and solutions.
To date over 200 people have joined the developer community, which comes as the result of a recent survey from NHS Digital showing 76 percent of existing users, consisting of chief technology officers, project managers, business analysts and developers, were in favour of a supported official NHS forum to provide them with the help and support they need.
The developer community is open to anyone to access, with the latest discussions focusing on FHIR Terminology Server ECL queries, EPS Create prescription, and how to create an application which can integrate with EMIS (Web).
Ernest Kissiedu, Business Analyst, NHS Digital, said: “We realised we could improve the way we do things by providing an open forum to create a sense of community among our API developers. We were offering developer support to API Product teams using email, MS Teams, and Slack channels. But every week, we were receiving the same queries relating to the same issues such as getting started on NHS Digital APIs, accessing our path to live environments, and onboarding.
“By answering these questions in an open forum, we realised more people would be able to see the solutions to these problems. We want to support our developers by ensuring they have a positive experience and encourage them to use our APIs to develop cost-effective, digital services designed around the needs of our health and care professionals, patients, and the public.”
Shan Rahulan, Director of Platforms for Core Services at NHS Digital, added: “I’m really keen to work in the open so that we can bring all the expertise and experience we have across the health and care service together. There are a lot of people outside NHS Digital whose expertise we can harness.
To access the community, please click here.
