Electronic health record software giant Epic previewed Thursday new app developer tools and interoperability features that simplify data sharing for providers and patients.
In the past year, more than 745 billion data exchanges took place using Epic’s publicly available application programming interfaces, according to Epic.
The health IT company is working on several initiatives to ease patients' access to data, including the MyChart Central feature that will let patients use a single Epic-issued ID to connect their MyChart records across different providers.
"The nationwide rollout of MyChart Central is underway and will completed later this year," said Seth Hain, Epic’s senior vice president of R&D, during Open@Epic, a developer-focused conference attended by 1,000 healthcare experts.
MyChart Central will make it easier for patients to connect apps and devices to their complete medical record. That feature was first announced at Epic's Users Group Meeting in August.
"Patients will be able to have one MyChart login that pulls their health data together from the multiple different sites of care, and be able to use that login consistently across organizations," Hain said.
Built-in biometrics support will enable patients to log in without memorizing their username and password. This will enable patients to easily share a complete medical picture to trusted apps.
Epic also is supporting a new Bluetooth Generic Health Sensor specification. This will enable patients to connect home devices, such as blood pressure cuffs, to MyChart.
The company also unveiled updates for Open.Epic, an online resource of app developers. Open.Epic is a web portal and ecosystem that provides developers, vendors and healthcare organizations with the self-service tools and documentation necessary to learn about, test and implement data exchanges with the Epic system. Open.Epic provides specifications for more than 800 free APIs.
Epic plans to add real-time “blue dot” wayfinding in MyChart to help patients get where they need to go, which will be release in November.
The company also will roll out additional prior authorization APIs to strengthen provider-payer communication, to be released February 2026.
Also in February, Epic will release a new set of staff duress APIs to support location-aware alerts for nurses to get the assistance they need when their safety is jeopardized.
"This will help make sure that if you're building applications that address those unfortunate circumstances where clinical staff are under stress, you can both locate them and have the information necessary to quickly address that situation," Hain said.
"Additionally, there's a number of new APIs that we're creating right now and will be available later this year to help streamline the identity management process and verification process around MyChart," he added
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Midmark RTLS, a real-time locating system (RTLS) provider, is one developer with plans to connect to Epic’s Staff Duress APIs. “Together, we’re building safer, more connected care environments where staff can focus on patients, while knowing help is always within reach,” HT Snowday, senior director at Midmark RTLS, said in a statement.
Epic also announced that the Clarity data model is now available for app developers to license—providing additional support for developers who need population-level data to support AI, analytics, and population health applications
Hain also noted that Epic is preparing to support United States Core Data for Interoperability v5, which will improve the standardized exchange of information related to advanced directives, medication adherence and diagnostic images.
The company also highlighted improvements to the app developer experience through Open.Epic and its Vendor Services program. Epic released a new five-step guide with a road map for new developers to follow, from app idea, to connection technology selection, to collaborating with the Epic community to bring it to life.
Epic also offers more than 40 developer playbooks highlighting recommended workflows and technology for common data exchange requests. And the company expanded sandbox testing capabilities to give app developers a self-service option for creating certain test data and reviewing the results of their API calls in test Epic patient records.