Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, an HL7 standard for exchanging healthcare data between systems using modern web APIs.
FHIR, pronounced fire, was developed by the standards organization HL7 International. It breaks health information into building blocks called resources, such as Patient, Observation, Medication, and Appointment, which can be exchanged through REST APIs using common formats like JSON. This makes it far easier for developers to work with than many older healthcare standards.
FHIR enables uses such as patient apps that pull records from a hospital's electronic health record, sharing lab results between providers, and connecting remote monitoring devices to clinical systems. For example, a blood pressure monitoring app can send readings into a clinic's records as FHIR observations. In the United States, federal rules under the 21st Century Cures Act require certain health IT systems to provide standardized FHIR-based APIs, which has accelerated adoption.
A digital version of a patient's medical history that can be shared securely among authorized healthcare providers.
InteroperabilityThe ability of different systems, devices, or applications to exchange data and work together without special effort from users.
REST APIAn API that follows Representational State Transfer principles, using standard HTTP methods and URLs to work with resources.
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