API Management and Integration Practices in Nigerian Telehealth Platforms

The rapid growth of telehealth platforms in Nigeria following the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed significant gaps in API management practices that undermine platform reliability, data security, and interoperability with national health data systems. This study examines API management and integration practices at five Nigerian telehealth platforms operating across Lagos, Abuja, and Enugu, representing three geopolitical zones. A mixed-methods approach combines code architecture reviews with interviews involving 20 backend engineers and platform architects. Analysis evaluates API design against RESTful best practices, authentication standards (OAuth 2.0, JWT), rate limiting implementation, versioning strategies, and documentation quality. Findings reveal that 60 percent of platforms lack formal API versioning strategies, leading to breaking changes that affect third-party integrators including insurance providers and pharmacy chains. Documentation quality is rated inadequate by 75 percent of external developers surveyed. The study proposes an API management maturity model tailored to resource-constrained Nigerian health technology companies. Professional recommendations include adoption of API gateway solutions such as Kong or AWS API Gateway and mandatory OpenAPI specification documentation for all external-facing endpoints. This research contributes a practitioner-focused API governance framework to the growing Nigerian telehealth engineering profession. Keywords: API management, telehealth, Nigeria, RESTful, interoperability