APIs in Healthcare: Transforming Data Sharing, Security, & Compliance

Hospitals and healthcare providers increasingly leverage APIs to enhance data exchange between Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and various applications. APIs are bridges, enabling seamless communication between disparate systems, facilitating patient access to health information, and optimizing clinical workflows. However, despite their potential, APIs introduce significant security, interoperability, and regulatory challenges that healthcare organizations must navigate.

The growing role of APIs in healthcare

The healthcare industry is undergoing a digital transformation, with secure APIs playing a central role in enabling real-time data exchange. This shift is fueled by regulatory initiatives such as the 21st Century Cures Act, which promotes interoperability and patient data access. 

According to a report by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), a growing number of hospitals are adopting APIs to connect EHRs with third-party applications - see Figure 1.

The advancement in data sharing enables patients to access their health records through mobile apps, improves coordination among healthcare providers, and facilitates AI-driven analytics for medical research. However, these advantages also carry significant risks that need to be managed carefully.

Figure 1: Source: 2022 AHA Annual Survey Information Technology Supplement

Key challenges hospitals face with API-driven data sharing

1. Technical barriers to integration

Despite the promise of APIs, many hospitals struggle to integrate them effectively due to technical and infrastructure limitations. Several key barriers include:

• Lack of standardized API implementations across different EHR vendors, making interoperability difficult.
• Legacy systems that are not designed to support API-based data exchange, requiring costly upgrades.
• Limited technical expertise within hospital IT teams to manage complex API integrations securely.

An American Hospital Association (AHA) survey found that a majority of hospitals reported challenges in their ability to electronically exchange data with public health authorities due to technical constraints. These challenges not only slow down innovation but also prevent hospitals from fully leveraging API-driven data sharing.

2. Data standardization and interoperability issues

One of the biggest hurdles in API adoption is inconsistent data formats across healthcare systems. Each EHR vendor may implement APIs differently, leading to compatibility issues. Some common concerns include:

• Variability in data structures when different hospitals store patient data in non-uniform formats.
• Inconsistent use of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), the industry standard for healthcare APIs, leads to integration challenges.
• Mapping errors in patient data exchange can result in incomplete or incorrect information being shared between applications.

Without strong interoperability frameworks, APIs can introduce inefficiencies rather than solve them, ultimately impacting patient care.

3. Information blocking and restricted API access

Although APIs are intended to facilitate data exchange, certain EHR vendors or healthcare organizations engage in information blocking—practices that prevent data from being easily shared. This can occur in various ways:

• Restricting API access to only select third-party applications, limiting innovation.
• Hiding API endpoints behind paywalls, making it costly for developers to integrate with hospital systems.
• Deliberate throttling of API requests, causing slow response times and hindering real-time data exchange.

These barriers contradict the spirit of healthcare interoperability regulations and frustrate patients and healthcare providers seeking seamless access to critical health information.

4. Security risks and compliance challenges

Perhaps the most critical concern with API-based data exchange is security. APIs expand the attack surface for hospitals by introducing new entry points for cybercriminals. Some key risks include:

• Unauthorized API access, leading to data breaches of sensitive patient records.
• Insufficient authentication and encryption, making it easier for attackers to intercept health data in transit.
• Supply chain vulnerabilities, where third-party applications connected via APIs become potential backdoors for cyberattacks.

Compliance with HIPAA is another significant challenge. APIs must be designed to strictly control data access, ensuring that only authorized users can retrieve and modify patient information. Without secure APIs governance and monitoring, hospitals risk fines, reputational damage, and patient trust erosion in the event of a data breach.

How Vorlon helps hospitals and healthcare firms secure API data sharing

Modern healthcare runs on a complex ecosystem of third-party applications, APIs, and cloud platforms, making patient records more vulnerable than ever. APIs play a critical role in data sharing, but they also introduce security and compliance risks that traditional security tools struggle to address.
Hospitals and other healthcare firms need a security-first approach to API management that balances interoperability, compliance, and risk mitigation. According to the 2022 AHA Annual Survey, “Among all hospitals, about 4 in 5 reported using APIs to enable clinician-facing apps to write data to the EHR and read EHR data, respectively, and half reported using APIs to enable apps to read non-EHR data.”

Figure 2: Source: 2022 AHA Annual Survey Information Technology Supplement

This is where Vorlon steps in

Vorlon Third-Party Application Detection and Response (TADR) delivers proactive security coverage for third-party integrations and sensitive data flows. After an agentless, proxy-free setup, Vorlon continuously monitors API traffic, helping hospitals:

• Map third-party apps and sensitive data flows to identify PHI, billing data, and unauthorized access risks.
• Detect abandoned credentials, unauthorized API activity, and anomalous data-sharing behaviors.
• Revoke risky access and remediate security incidents via SIEM, SOAR, IAM, and threat intelligence integrations.
• Maintain HIPAA, HITECH, and HITRUST compliance with automated monitoring and audit-ready reporting.
• Prevent data breaches by detecting policy drift and access violations before they escalate.

By deploying Vorlon, healthcare organizations gain continuous visibility, proactive risk management, and real-time API security enforcement—ensuring patient data remains secure and compliant.

Take the next step in securing healthcare APIs

1.  Book a demo with a Vorlon expert
2.  Watch the Vorlon for Healthcare explainer video
3.  View the Vorlon for Healthcare solution brief
4.  Take a self-guided Vorlon for Healthcare product tour

About the author

With over 20 years in cybersecurity, Mike Cioffi has worked across various areas, focusing on security operations tools, processes, and methodologies. He has held roles at Palo Alto Networks, Intel Security, and McAfee, honing his skills in optimizing cyber workflows and building efficiencies into security frameworks. Passionate about eliminating mundane security tasks, he strives to make cyber operations more efficient. At Vorlon, he focuses on helping enterprises gain better visibility and context into their third-party app ecosystem and the data flowing between them.