In our mission to streamline healthcare data exchange and improve care delivery, Redox is excited to announce full support for CDS Hooks, an HL7® standard that enables real-time, automated clinical decision support at the point of care.
This marks a major step forward for healthcare interoperability. With Redox now supporting CDS Hooks, vendors, payers, and providers can integrate smarter workflows directly into clinical systems without the need to re-architect existing infrastructure.
What is CDS Hooks?
CDS Hooks is a modern, FHIR-based standard developed by HL7 that enables external applications to deliver real-time clinical decision support (CDS) inside an EHR workflow.
Think of it as an “event listener” for the EHR: when a clinician opens a chart, prescribes a medication, or initiates an order, a hook is triggered. The EHR then calls out to external services—like a payer’s rules engine or a third-party clinical support tool—which respond with cards that display suggestions, warnings, or next steps. CDS Hooks can even display a SmartOnFHIR App to enable actions within the EHR.
CDS Hooks enable decision support that is:
- Contextual: Based on the exact clinical moment and patient context, allowing display of your app within the EHR
- Real-time: Delivered instantly as a clinician is making decisions.
- Actionable: On supported platforms like Epic, CDS Hooks can trigger actions that flow back into the EHR—either automatically or based on user selection—enabling dynamic, bi-directional interaction.
- Non-intrusive: Presented in-line with existing EHR workflows (no new screens!)
Who Benefits from CDS Hooks?
CDS Hooks are a win for the entire healthcare ecosystem:
- Providers – Clinicians receive real-time insights without leaving the EHR. Whether it’s identifying gaps in care, flagging drug interactions, surfacing AI-driven recommendations, or initiating prior authorization, CDS Hooks deliver the right guidance at the right moment—seamlessly integrated into clinical workflows.
- Payers – Payers can integrate directly into provider workflows to automate tasks like eligibility checks, benefit verification, and prior authorization. This reduces fax-based workflows, improves transparency, and lowers administrative overhead.
- Vendors – Digital health vendors can surface clinical insights, trigger automated workflows, and deliver value-added services—all within the provider’s native EHR environment. CDS Hooks enable smarter engagement, improved adoption, and a seamless experience for users.
- Patients – Patients benefit from faster, more informed care decisions. Reduced delays from manual processes like prior auth mean quicker access to treatments and fewer care disruptions.
Why Does This Matter?
Healthcare is evolving toward value-based care, automation, and data-driven decisions. But these goals remain out of reach when data is siloed or workflows are disconnected.
CDS Hooks bridges that gap, connecting decision-making systems (including AI-powered tools) with point-of-care workflows. It offers a standardized, lightweight way to embed intelligent, real-time insights directly into the EHR experience.
Redox adds the missing piece: making that connection easy, secure, and scalable across any EHR that supports CDS Hooks– including Epic, Athena and eClinicalWorks.
Transforming Prior Authorization with Redox and CDS Hooks
If there’s one process ripe for transformation, its prior authorization—a critical yet notoriously burdensome part of care delivery.
Clinicians today navigate a patchwork of portals, faxes, and manual workflows just to get necessary treatments approved. The consequences are real: 23% of physicians say prior authorization has led to a patient’s hospitalization, and 78% report it often causes patients to abandon recommended care. This burden isn’t just clinical—it’s also financial. The U.S. spends an estimated $35 billion annually on administrative costs tied to prior auth alone.
Now, with the CMS-0057 final rule going into effect, payers are required to implement FHIR-based prior authorization APIs to streamline these workflows and reduce burden on providers. Redox powers CDS Hooks in a compliant, scalable way—while also translating data to and from FHIR—so even if organizations are not fully FHIR-enabled, you can still support CDS Hooks use cases and meet regulatory requirements.
Redox helps payers:
- Detect whether PA is needed at the moment of ordering
- Instantly return approval criteria or required documentation
- Avoid faxes, callbacks, and costly delays
The result? Smoother workflows for providers, fewer disruptions for patients, and measurable savings across the board. Prior authorization is just the beginning. With Redox and CDS Hooks, we’re not just improving a process—we’re reshaping how healthcare decisions are made.
Smarter Integrations + Seamless Workflows—Powered by Redox
CDS Hooks unlocks powerful, real-time decision support—but making it work across fragmented EHR systems is no small feat. That’s where Redox comes in.
With CDS Hooks, your actionable insights from AI can flow directly into the EHR. Redox removes the integration burden by connecting you once to a broad network of healthcare organizations and handling the complexities behind the scenes.
Unlike DIY approaches, we manage critical infrastructure like service discovery, making your solution discoverable and callable by EHRs—without custom work or site-specific configuration. You focus on delivering smarter logic; we take care of the rest.
Whether you’re streamlining prior authorization to comply with CMS-0057 or delivering next-generation clinical intelligence, Redox gives you the infrastructure to make CDS Hooks work—at scale, in context, and without friction.
Ready to Power Smarter Decisions?
CDS Hooks are more than just an API—they’re a bridge to better care. And now with Redox, they’re easier than ever to implement and scale.
Whether you’re a payer seeking to automate prior authorization, or a digital health solution delivering clinical intelligence, Redox helps you meet providers where they are.
Contact us to explore how your organization can leverage CDS Hooks with Redox today.