HL7 standard FHIR is on fire
BOSTON--Due to its simplicity and ease of use, Health 7 International's (HL7) Fast Healthcare Interoperable Resource (FHIR) standard for exchanging healthcare information electronically is gaining steam and may pave the path to greater interoperability, said HL7 CEO Charles Jaffe, MD, PhD, speaking at the Medical Informatics World Conference on April 29.
While FHIR (pronounced “fire”) has been under development by HL7 for several years, the draft standard for trial use, which allows health organizations and IT vendors to use it on a trial basis, became available earlier this year.
Within weeks, adoption has taken off. Hundreds of IT suppliers at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference in February already had implemented it into their solutions, according to Jaffe. Also, the standard has been translated into multiple languages within the frame of a few months.
The reason: It combines the best features of HL7 v2 and HL7 v3 Clinical Document Architecture. Also, it is easy to implement, as it was developed from modern web technologies and RESTful services and familiar web specifications like XML, JSON, HTTP, Atom and OAuth, according to Jaffe. Other features he highlighted:
- FHIR supports leading privacy and security specifications
- FHIR solutions are human readable, and they support EHR lookups and queries
- FHIR enables an evolutionary development path
- FHIR supports mobile health, social media and personal health records
“The standard is so easy to implement, and the results are so remarkable and effective. It has taken the information model without the need for the implementers to know or learn the model or modeling,” he said.
For now, the biggest barrier to its widespread use that it is still just a draft standard. “Until it becomes standard, it is challenging to use it,” said Jaffe.
The future looks bright for FHIR, he said.
“FHIR, to me, is the next step for interoperable systems, whether for patient care, research or to support clinical decision support, which is at the heart of EHRs,” Jaffe said. “I think we’ll do great.”