Kaiser Talks Up Monkey Game, Talks Down EMR Integration

When Kaiser Permanente debuted its Interchange platform API initiative last month, the company made it clear that they would not be feeding patient health information into third party apps or devices via APIs. While the health system has done notable research into incorporating things like exercise data into its EMR, it isn’t interested in integrating just any data stream. Kaiser Permanente’s Lead Innovation Designer Christine Folck recently spoke at the Games For Health conference in Boston, telling a group of developers what Kaiser Permanente is and isn’t looking for in health games and apps. Correction: An earlier version of this article stated inaccurately that Kaiser Permanente wasn’t interested in incorporating any data from apps and devices into its EMR.

“Don’t come to us telling us you can upload [data] into our electronic medical record,” Folck said. “We don’t necessarily want it there. We have too much information in our electronic medical record. Kaiser Permanente was one of the first to go nationwide with our electronic medical record, we are fully integrated, but the problem is now everybody wants to upload into it. Our physicians don’t want it all there. They really don’t need to know how much exercise each of their patients is getting on a daily basis; they just don’t have time to process all of that.”