WELL Health Advances Digital Health Interoperability for apps.health and its Global EMR Business with Adoption of 'Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources' or FHIR Standard

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Apr 12, 2021, 07:00 ET

WELL's apps.health marketplace and WELL EMR Group launch a new FHIR API or "Application Programming Interface" to accelerate the adoption of digital health innovation in healthcare with WELL's growing global Electronic Medical Records (EMR) footprint.
The adoption of key industry standards such as FHIR will allow digital health app developers to build integrations more easily to EMR platforms and make it easier for clinicians to launch digital health apps.
With the adoption of FHIR, WELL will ensure strong programmatic connectivity between its global family of EMR products and its apps.health ecosystem extending app availability to its full EMR footprint globally.
FHIR interoperability will allow third party app developers to publish apps to WELL's apps.health ecosystem and immediately communicate with WELL's global fleet of EMR platforms providing access to thousands of medical practitioners in multiple countries.

VANCOUVER, BC, April 12, 2021 /PRNewswire/ - WELL Health Technologies Corp. (TSX: WELL) ("WELL" or the "Company"), a company focused on consolidating and modernizing clinical and digital assets within the healthcare sector, is pleased to announce its apps.health marketplace and WELL EMR Group have launched an API (or "Application Programming Interface") that supports the key industry interoperability standard known as FHIR (or "Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources"). FHIR is an emerging standard for exchanging healthcare data which has been broadly adopted in the U.S. and is being implemented in many other countries including Canada. In addition, major consumer and cloud technology companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have publicly committed to the FHIR standard and have incorporated FHIR capabilities into their web service offerings. Apple first announced its adoption of FHIR in 2018 with iOS11 and Apple Health Record.

"The last 10-15 years in healthcare have focused on the shift from paper to electronic medical records, but the full potential of the digital record and EMR systems have yet to be realized due to interoperability issues," said Amir Javidan, Chief Operating Officer of WELL. "To our knowledge, we are the first Canadian-based company with an EMR division to adopt FHIR standards for third party app developers. Our adoption of FHIR and open identity standards within apps.health will help standardize interoperability within healthcare, accelerate digital health innovation, and further drive improvements in patient care."

Currently in its fourth iteration, FHIR is a uniform data language and API for healthcare data exchange. It was first published by HL7 (Health Level Seven) in 2014, a not-for-profit organization that develops international standards for exchange of health data. The success of any standard depends on adoption, and over the last few years FHIR has been widely embraced by both public and private sectors globally; spurred further in the U.S. by the ONC (Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT) and CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) writing FHIR into its newly established interoperability regulations in March 2020. An estimated 85% of hospital systems in the U.S. have the FHIR API available, which has now grown as the regulations take hold in 2021.

WELL's implementation of FHIR allows third party app developers to build integrations more easily to apps.health and its family of EMRs, making it convenient for clinicians to launch digital health apps. In addition, WELL's implementation of FHIR will support full bidirectional communication and event-based workflows, which means that app integration workflows can be triggered based on clinical events.

With the adoption of FHIR, WELL is also launching Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities leveraging industry identity standards. This will also allow clinicians to more easily and seamlessly access third party digital health apps from within their EMR.

Shervin Bakhtiari, GM for the Digital App business unit commented, "This is a game-changer for App developers, as this will eventually enable them to integrate and publish once and reach multiple EMR platforms in multiple countries reaching thousands of practitioners. We are very excited to be bringing these innovative capabilities to our apps.health ecosystem. We are breaking down the barriers and complexity involved with EMR integrations, and empowering healthcare professionals and patients with access to the thriving digital health landscape."

Digital health app developers or publishers interested in signing up for early release access can register at https://apps.health, full API functionality will be made available in late Q2.

WELL HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES CORP.
Per: "Hamed Shahbazi"
Hamed Shahbazi
Chief Executive Officer, Chairman and Director

About WELL Health Technologies Corp.

WELL is an omni-channel digital health company whose overarching objective is to empower doctors to provide the best and most advanced care possible while leveraging the latest trends in digital health. As such, WELL owns and operates 27 primary healthcare clinics, is Canada's third largest digital Electronic Medical Records (EMR) supplier serving approximately 2,200 healthcare clinics, operates a high quality telehealth services in both Canada and the United States and is a provider of digital health, billing and cybersecurity related technology solutions. WELL is an acquisitive company that follows a disciplined and accretive capital allocation strategy. To access the Company's telehealth service, visit: tiahealth.com, and for corporate information, visit: www.well.company.

Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this news release related to the Company are forward-looking statements and are prospective in nature including: the expectation that WELL's launch of a new FHIR API may accelerate the adoption of digital health innovation in healthcare; the statement that FHIR will allow developers to build integrations more easily to EMR platforms and make it easier for clinicians to launch digital health apps; that WELL's adoption of FHIR will help standardize interoperability with expected benefits of accelerating digital innovation; and the expectation that full API functionality will be made available in late Q2. Forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts, but rather on current expectations and projections about future events, and are therefore subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as "may", "should", "could", "would", "intend", "estimate", "plan", "anticipate", "expect", "believe" or the negative thereof or similar variations. There are numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and the Company's plans and objectives to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements, including: business disruption risks relating to COVID-19; regulatory risks, including those related to healthcare, privacy and data security; continued widespread support and adoption of FHIR API as the global standard for digital health innovation in healthcare; interoperability risks and other risks outlined in the Company's publicly filed documents available on SEDAR. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. These and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements are based on estimates and opinions of management on the dates they are made and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this notice. Except as required by law, the Company does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

SOURCE WELL Health Technologies Corp.