FHIR (pronounced ‘Fire’) stands for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources.
FHIR is the latest standard developed under the HL7 organization, and contains the promises to serve as a good alternative to the HL7 standards. According to HL7:
FHIR can be used as a stand-alone data exchange standard, but can and will also be used in partnership with existing widely used standards.
FHIR’s attributes prove out the maxim that complexity is the enemy of interoperability:
Simplicity: FHIR is much simpler when compared to C32, Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture (CCDA), Cross Community Access (XCA), Patient Identity Cross Referencing (PIX), Patient Demographics Query (PDQ) and other recently popular specifications.
Fine-Grained Capability: FHIR’s fine-grained capability aligns well with the VA’s Electronic Health Management Platform (eHMP) applets, and the way Legacy Viewers work for data sharing.
