The vocabulary of shipping into Epic.
Plain-English explainers of the standards and programs you'll touch when your product needs to live inside an Epic clinician workflow. Written for vendors and CTOs, not standards bodies.
What is SMART on FHIR?
The open standard that launches a third-party app inside Epic with patient context. A technical contract — not a product, marketplace, host, or compliance program.
What is FHIR?
The modern healthcare data standard. RESTful, JSON-based, supported by every certified EHR in the US.
What is the Epic Showroom?
Epic's customer-facing marketplace. A listing makes an app requestable; it does not host it, sign a BAA, or pass each hospital's security review.
App Orchard vs Epic Showroom
Epic App Orchard retired. Today's split is Epic Showroom (catalog) plus Vendor Services (enrollment). A listing is not a host, BAA, security review, or go-live.
Epic Showroom vs a SMART on FHIR runtime
Distribution, runtime, and integration platform do three different jobs. Which tool you need, what each is not, and when.
How to get your app into Epic
Sandbox, live customer, Vendor Services, Connection Hub, Showroom — the clinician SMART launch path, and why a listing is not go-live.
How to host a SMART on FHIR app
GitHub Pages and the SMART Launcher are for learning. Hospital production needs a HIPAA runtime with a BAA, SOC 2, and audit logs.