As we prepare to host some of Boston’s digital health innovators and aspiring entrepreneurs at our office April 27, during the Boston NewCo Festival, we’re reflecting on the mission that drives us and the other companies selected to participate in this event. We are here, quite simply, to change the world.

The long-awaited Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement initiative (CJR) became reality on April 1, 2016. Under CJR, hospitals must find ways to rein in costs, reduce complications and improve patient outcomes for hip and knee replacements—the most common joint-replacement procedures—in order to receive maximum reimbursements from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

You’re collecting information about your patient’s health, but what are you doing with it? Does it sit—disconnected—in your digital systems? Or does it travel seamlessly between them?

The infographic below shows how hospitals and patients efficiently form a meaningful relationship and why digital connections and education are essential to value-based care.

As Meaningful Use moved to Stage 3 (MU3) in 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) added APIs (application programming interface) as an alternative or complement to patient portals.

But are these two digital health tools at odds with each other? And where do APIs fit in with Meaningful Use Stage 3?