Kaiser API opens healthcare data to mobile apps

Healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente published a developers' API Monday that will allow independent application developers to access its healthcare facility information and produce user applications with it. Over the last two years, Kaiser has itself produced four mobile applications for iPhone and Android smartphones that allow Kaiser healthcare plan participants to set up doctors' appointments, see electronic medical records, view most lab results and refill prescriptions, among other things. Those applications have been downloaded from the iTunes store 85,000 times, prompting Kaiser officials to realize what a valuable new channel has been opened between itself and its members.