Stream: CARIN IG for Blue Button®
Topic: Rolling out a new API version
Sarah Tully (Jul 15 2020 at 15:46):
Hi there!
I'm Sarah, a product manager at CMS working on the Beneficiary FHIR Data Server, an internal API that is passed through to several APIs that share claims data externally, including Blue Button 2.0 and BCDA.
We are working on building a V2 of our API that conforms with R4, and are ultimately trying to figure out how we can roll out a new version of the API to our customers (external users of BB2, BCDA, etc) with as little friction as possible. We also will need to figure out for how long we'll support both versions in parallel, what documentation we need to create, and however else we can support our customers.
To that end, we are looking to talk to folks who have experience with this transition. Have you already released an R4 conformant API and can tell us about your experience migrating customers onto that version? If so, let's talk! We're looking for folks willing to talk to our product team and user researchers in the hopes of learning from your success/failures. Please PM me, respond here or shoot me an email (sarah.tully@cms.hhs.gov) if you're interested.
Thanks,
Sarah
Cooper Thompson (Jul 16 2020 at 15:46):
For clinical APIs, our approach is just to support all FHIR versions indefinitely. We encourage new developers to use more recent versions, and don't enhance older versions. We often see cases where an app or integration is developed, deployed to production, and the project team and development team move on to other efforts. There may be some minimal maintenance happening, but once an integration is in place, there is often a (very reasonable) "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality. If/when you deprecate an API, the main consideration is whether the costs savings you get from reduced maintenance outweighs the cost having many/all applications in the ecosystem re-write their app, retest it, and re-deploy it to production (all of which is very expensive, and projects to do so may not ever be budgeted by some vendors).
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
