Stripe for Health Data Access
Brendan Keeler, Senior PM at Zus Health, on building infrastructure for digital health
The key point is that this model wins by hiding ugly healthcare pipes behind a clean developer interface, not by owning the underlying network. Companies like Particle, Health Gorilla, and Kno2 sit on top of old exchange rails such as Carequality, CommonWell, Direct, and regional networks, then package record lookups, routing, normalization, and workflow tooling into one API. That is Stripe like in the sense that the customer buys simplicity, faster launch, and fewer one off integrations.
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The practical buyer is usually a digital health provider or health tech vendor that needs records from many hospitals. Instead of negotiating and building against each endpoint, the customer plugs into one vendor API and gets patient history, ADT alerts, document exchange, or messaging through one contract and one technical integration.
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The limit of the analogy is that Stripe mostly standardized access to card rails, while Zus is trying to turn data access into a base layer and then build a shared patient record on top. Its platform combines external retrieval with its own patient profile, universal patient identifier, app components, and direct EHR integrations, which pushes it beyond pure connectivity.
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That is why these companies overlap in sales motion more than product destination. Particle and Kno2 emphasize broad network access through a single API. Zus treats raw access as table stakes, then uses that data inside care workflows, shared records, and builder tools that let digital health companies run operations on top of the data, not just fetch it.
The market is moving from simple fetch my records APIs toward workflow systems that can become the operating layer for digital care delivery. As underlying exchange networks become more reachable, the enduring value shifts to patient matching, normalized longitudinal records, embedded clinical actions, and software that fits directly into how providers schedule, document, coordinate, and bill care.