Trigger with the API
Start care flows through the Orchestration API, the most flexible option and the one that needs engineering time.
Triggering care flows through the API is the most flexible method, covering the widest range of situations. It also needs technical work, so budget engineering time for it rather than treating it as configuration.
Search, create, then start
- Search for the patient, to avoid creating a duplicate. See Patients in the API reference.
- Create the patient if they don't exist yet. Same reference.
- Start the care flow. See Care flows in the API reference.
Skipping step 1 is how the same person ends up in Awell twice. Search by business identifier rather than by name.
Starting by identifier keeps Awell IDs out of the calling system
A care flow can be started with a business identifier instead of the Awell patient ID, so the calling system never has to store an Awell ID. See Patient identifiers.
When to use it
- The other triggers don't give enough control.
- Enrollment logic lives outside Awell and should stay there.
- An API integration already exists for other reasons.
If none of those apply, one of the lower-effort triggers in this section probably fits better. See Before you trigger a care flow.
Next steps
Next: Configure API call retries for what happens when a call from a care flow fails.
ADT feeds
Start, update or stop care flows from a hospital's admission, discharge and transfer messages, processed through Mirth.
Start a care flow from an incoming webhook
Let another system start a care flow by posting to an Awell URL: create the webhook, map payload data to baseline data points, attach a patient, and read the logs.