Verona, Wis.-based Epic plans to lower program fees for health IT developers participating in its App Orchard program, and will launch a new entry-level program tier, called Nursery.
Epic announced the App Orchard updates at its App Orchard conference last week at its Verona headquarters, according to reporting from Politico published Oct. 26.
In an email statement, Brett Gann, App Orchard director, confirmed the company is reducing and simplifying the costs associated with participating in the app developer program. The three tiers of the program will see program fee reductions ranging from 33 to 80 percent as part of the update, Gann said.
Epic launched its App Orchard in 2017 as an online marketplace for third-party developers with 13 applications.
To date, more than 350 companies in the healthcare industry participate in Epic’s app developer program, where they have access to hundreds of application programming interfaces (APIs), documentation, testing tools, individual technical support, training, conferences, and integration with the Epic community, Gann said,
Gann also said the program updates announced last week at the annual App Orchard Conference in Verona will “engage a broader community of developers and increase access to APIs through simplified and reduced costs.”
The updates will help drive healthcare innovation as interested developers have the opportunity to build on top of Epic’s health record platform, using emerging industry standards such as FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), Gann said.
Epic also announced a new program tier, Nursery, that will enable early-stage startups to enroll in the app developer program to access Epic’s public API documentation, tutorials, and sandboxes. Early-stage startups also will have access to FHIR, SMART on FHIR, and CDS Hooks, Gann said.
Enrolling in the Nursery program tier will cost participants $100 per year, Gann said, and when a company is prepared to go to market with its product, it may graduate to one of the other three tiers.
Nursery members will have access to Epic’s FHIR sandboxes, classroom and online learning opportunities, and the ability to engage with the online community of Epic, health system, and vendor developers and experts.
In addition to the program fee reductions, as part of the update, Epic will offer new program benefits to participants in the other three tiers, such as additional training opportunities, developer events, support services, sandboxes, and program accounts.
Gann also said Epic has simplified the pricing model for API-based integrations, eliminating the minimum fees, and reducing the cap. “It’s our expectation these updates will be a price reduction for nearly all program members,” he said.
Some developers, particularly smaller developers, have complained in the past that the fees to participate in the vendor app store are too steep.
Earlier this year, Politico reported the experiences of Rick Freeman, CEO of Interopion. Freeman told Politico that a family planning questionnaire app he developed for HHS’s Office of Population Health could have cost him up to $750,000 to run on Epic or Cerner for a year.
As reported by Politico in its October 26 report, in response to the program updates, Freeman said he is “very happy with the changes.”
