Japan’s Digital Agency invites companies to help set a standard API linking electronic medical records with efficiency services

Japan’s Digital Agency invites companies to help set a standard API linking electronic medical records with efficiency services

29 September 2026 — Japan's Digital Agency announced on 29 September 2026 that it is recruiting additional companies for Subcommittee C of the Council for the Renewal of Hospital Information Systems, which it runs with the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. The subcommittee is working out a standard API between electronic medical records and services that make medical institutions more efficient, including tools built on generative AI. For a health-software vendor, a seat means a say in the specification its products will later have to meet.

Why the council exists

The two bodies want to move hospitals' on-premise systems (electronic medical records, billing computers and departmental systems) to cloud-based systems. The council's outline sets an aim of roughly 100% electronic-record adoption by the end of 2030. Standard specifications for electronic records in small and mid-sized hospitals were completed last year, and the ministry plans to start certifying private vendors against them this fiscal year. A separate Subcommittee A is already working on cloud-native records for large hospitals.

What Subcommittee C does

Subcommittee C deals with "new service groups that contribute to the improvement of operational efficiency of medical institutions by utilizing advanced technologies such as generative AI". Last year it focused on hospitals of about 100 to 200 beds, covered medical interviews and voice input, and produced a provisional draft of eight standard linkage APIs. This year it plans to:

• widen the target from clinics to large hospitals;
• add business areas such as business management and personal health record (PHR) services, and consider further API specifications;
• verify and update last year's draft APIs, and set rules for future revisions and for deciding what becomes a standard requirement.

The agency says it will give priority to businesses that help verify and improve the linkage API, and to those that want to demonstrate their own services on it.

Who can apply, and how

The outline lists the conditions:

• a company with legal personality, running related business;
• willing to contribute actively to drafting, and to estimating build time and effect;
• with strict compliance;
• with a track record of linking to electronic medical records and of introducing services to medical institutions.

Applications are made once per company through the agency's online form. Supporting documents are sent separately by email: evidence of adoption at medical institutions and of record linkage, a system overview and an overall diagram. Not every applicant will be chosen. Members sign a confidentiality agreement, attend regular meetings and bear their own costs.

Not yet independently verified. The application deadline and the meeting schedule are not stated on the Digital Agency’s page or in the outline. The publisher has not stated it yet; we will update the dates here as we hear from the publisher. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

What to do

• Vendors of AI scribing, voice input, scheduling, billing, practice-management or PHR software with Japanese hospital customers should consider applying early, before a deadline appears.
• Prepare the adoption records and record-linkage evidence the outline asks for.
• Even without a seat, track the draft APIs: they are likely to shape what hospitals ask of suppliers.

Sources

• Digital Agency (Japan): In fiscal 2026, we began recruiting additional members (subcommittee C) for the Council for the Renewal of Hospital Information Systems — 29 September 2026
• Digital Agency and Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare: outline of the council, Subcommittee C additional recruitment (PDF, in Japanese, dated 24 September 2026) — 24 September 2026