The telehealth messaging API enables users to send and receive messages from any device with internet access. Whether you’re an individual looking to communicate with your doctor on the go or a company looking to improve your corporate health programs, this API has you covered. Here’s how it works.
Healthcare is evolving. While traditional, in-person visits remain important, there’s an increasing emphasis on remote care via telemedicine and apps that help you self-manage your health. The goal of telehealth is to help people get faster access to care, feel more at ease when communicating with their doctors and medical staff, and spend less time in hospitals. There are many other benefits as well. There are some limitations however. For example, while apps can help you track vitals like blood pressure over time (as you would with a wrist monitor), other health metrics might not be so easy to track remotely. These include stress levels or sleep quality for example.
What is telehealth? Technically, it's a way for patients and doctors to communicate remotely. It's a helpful technology that can help doctors reach patients in areas that would otherwise have limited access to healthcare providers or where there simply aren't enough healthcare professionals available. However, telehealth isn't meant only for rural areas; it has other uses as well. For example, many large corporations use telehealth (or videoconferencing) as a more cost-effective alternative to in-person doctor visits.
At its most basic level, telehealth can be broken down into two components: direct communication and information technology. Direct communication—the ability for providers to talk directly with patients—has been around for decades, mostly in areas like psychiatry or psychology. However, telehealth has experienced an unprecedented surge in popularity over the past few years as advances in information technology have allowed for digital networks to better connect practitioners with their patients without requiring them to be in close proximity. The result is that individuals living hundreds of miles away from medical facilities now have access to much more comprehensive care than they would otherwise be able to receive. Today's telehealth solutions are used for a wide variety of applications beyond just check-ins, including education and remote patient monitoring.
The Health Care Messaging System (HCMS) is an application programming interface (API) that allows healthcare providers, like doctors and nurses, to transmit messages for approved recipients. The HCMS uses what's called smart matching technology, which means it can check patient identifiers with up-to-date information in EHRs. If there is a match, you'll receive a message alert. And because HCMS is open source software developed by Cerner, there are many authorized developers you can use who will meet your needs. Here are four different ways you can use the telehealth messaging api.
The simplest way to get started with Twilio is through our console. Visit your console and click Get Started under APIs & Auth->Twilio SMS (SMS) on your Twilio dashboard. From there, you can follow along with some basic instructions for sending text messages using code on Twilio’s sandbox environment. If you want to build an app that uses Twilio, start by adding it as a dependency in your package manager (example for Ruby, Heroku instructions here). To get deeper into how to use our APIs check out our Developer Portal.
The Telehealth Messaging API allows you to share information about patients, healthcare workers, and places in your system. The types of data you can pass include one or more of: Patient ID; name; date of birth; gender; race; ethnicity; address; ZIP code/postal code/region (countries only); phone number (with format restrictions); email address (up to 1000 characters); preferred language; fluency in languages beyond English. Addresses are optional for US healthcare providers and countries outside US states that require addresses for licenses or certifications. You must also include patient location in latitude & longitude when using addresses.
