The encyclopedia · Software & IT · Technical decision · 2011–2019
FHIR won health-data exchange by putting it on web standards: REST and resources
HL7's FHIR is built on REST, JSON and XML, so any record is a resource with a URL and any developer can implement it.
HL7 · Grahame Grieve · Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT
the move
HL7 v2 messaging and the v3/CDA models had become complex and expensive for small vendors and hospitals to implement.
A 'Fresh Look' task force in 2011, led by Grahame Grieve, set out to build a simpler standard; the result was FHIR.
FHIR models data as typed Resources, each with a stable URL, and exposes them via REST over HTTP using XML or JSON.
Because it reuses web standards and is free to use, adoption grew quickly across vendors and government health systems.
why it works
- FHIR reuses REST, HTTP, JSON and XML, so developers need no new skills.
- Resources with stable URLs make records easy to find and share.
- The spec is free of restrictive licensing, unlike earlier HL7 standards.
- It can interoperate with existing v2 and CDA systems, so it is a bridge, not a rewrite.
what transfers
Unfriendly standards get beaten by simple ones; reuse the web's own idioms to make interoperability trivially adoptable.
what came after
FHIR became the leading interchange standard, adopted by major electronic health record vendors and dozens of national health systems for interoperability.
references
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