The FHIR Sandbox Problem: Why Open Epic Won't Get You to Your First Customer

You're three months into building a FHIR integration. You've got OAuth working, you can pull Patient resources, your UI renders demographics cleanly. Time to show it to a potential customer. You open the sandbox patient and see this: { "resourceType": "Patient", "id": "erXuFYUfucBZaryVksYEcMg3", "name": [ { "use": "usual", "text": "Test Cancer", "family": "Cancer", "given": ["Test"] } ], "birthDate": "1971-08-07", "gender": "female", "address": [ { "use": "home", "line": ["123 Main St."], "city": "Madison", "state": "WI", "postalCode": "53703" } ] } The patient's name is "Test Cancer." The address is 123 Main St. There are no emergency contacts, no marital status, no communication preferences. You scroll through the rest of the sandbox patients. "Derrick Lin." "Jason Argonaut." A handful of others, all equally sparse. This is Open Epic's sandbox. And it's the starting point for nearly every FHIR startup in the US. What Open Epic Actually Gives You Open Epic provides a shared FHIR R4 sa