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health2api.com - world biggest medical API service directory
How is was founded
health2api.com was founded during development of Health-related services, when we faced a problem, that information about current existing API services was either randomly distributed in the web, or it drowns in the crowd of APIs in general directories.
First, we collected information about APIs related to Health Care, Medical, Biology and Healthy Lifestyle or general APIs provided by an institution of this sector, ourselves and then started processing it, to make it more organized, categorized and topic relevant. Secondly, we decided to share this information and create medical directory, so that everybody could search for necessary API, use this information in their projects and contribute information about APIs, that was not available in the directory.
What about development?
Initially we created a web-site with API information we have collected so far. It was rich with the content and overall number of medical APIs was more than thousand already. However, it had three drawbacks: firstly, we collected information for ourselves and thus created web-site with idea how its convenient for us, but not for general user; secondly, it was not possible to change web-site content in an easy way, i.e. it was static; finally, there was no api service provided.
As soon as, it was clearly not the way we would like our service to be, we redesigned it completely. Whole project then was divided into into 3 major parts:
- API service information collection algorithms
- Crowd sourcing
- Connect and mashup with other directories
API service information collection algorithms was developed with main idea, that all information collection activity should be automated. With crowd sourcing it is possible to enable users to contribute to the directory in way of: proposal to improve content for specific API, information about API not yet available in the directory and etc. Mashing up with other directory allows us to create environment where we could collect information from various trusted sources and provide unified information about specific API.
Current Status
health2api.com is health 2.0-oriented and designed specifically for service developers and currently the world biggest open directory of specific health-, medical- and biology-related APIs. Current directory was created with an idea that information should be listed in convenient to the user way and provide categorized reading.
In fact, directory itself is a mashup. It collects API information from various sources in the web, constantly verifies their uptime status, and mashes it up with API information from other partner API directory. The health2api.com site offers more than 2,100 API for mashup.
We see health2api.com not just as directory, but more like a web-service. Currently we are dev eloping API access to the directory, so that it will be possible to access it with a web brows er like a normal web-page, and also enable software developers to create mash-ups with it.
When the first step in directory development was barely made and first medical API collection was created, we compared it with information in other directories and found out , that there are no standards how API information should be categorized, processed and presented to the user. This is very important and interesting challenge for us, but we'll do our best to create standards for medical APIs.
