Glossary Term
Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)
Definition
Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) is a standard for exchanging healthcare information electronically. Developed by Health Level Seven International (HL7), FHIR is designed to enable the seamless sharing of healthcare data across different systems, devices, and software applications. FHIR provides a set of resources, or modular components, that represent specific aspects of healthcare data, such as patient demographics, lab results, medication information, and clinical observations. These resources are designed to be simple, flexible, and accessible, allowing for easy integration between systems, whether for use in electronic health records (EHR), mobile health apps, medical devices, or other healthcare software.
FHIR leverages modern web technologies, such as HTTP, RESTful APIs, and JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), to enable efficient data exchange and improve interoperability across diverse healthcare environments. It is particularly valuable in the MedTech industry for ensuring that medical devices, healthcare applications, and systems can easily communicate with each other to improve patient care, streamline clinical workflows, and enable more accurate data-sharing.
Relevance to the MedTech Industry
FHIR plays a critical role in facilitating interoperability between medical devices, electronic health records (EHR), and other healthcare systems. By providing a standardized framework for data exchange, FHIR allows healthcare providers, device manufacturers, and software developers to create solutions that work together seamlessly, ensuring that patient data is accurately and securely shared across platforms. Medical devices, such as wearable health trackers, infusion pumps, and diagnostic devices, can use FHIR to integrate with EHR systems, enabling real-time data access, improving decision-making, and enhancing overall patient care. The adoption of FHIR is also supported by regulatory requirements for healthcare data sharing and the increasing push for more connected healthcare environments.
Additional Information & Related Terms
Related Terms
FHIR Resources: The modular components of the FHIR standard that define specific healthcare data elements, such as patient demographics, observations, medications, and more.
HL7: Health Level Seven, the organization that developed FHIR and other healthcare interoperability standards.
Interoperability: The ability of different healthcare systems, devices, and software to exchange, interpret, and use data consistently and securely.
RESTful API: A type of web service that uses standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) to facilitate communication between systems, commonly used in FHIR for data exchange.
OAuth2: A security protocol used in FHIR to authorize and authenticate access to healthcare data, ensuring that only authorized users or systems can retrieve or modify patient information.