HL7 FHIR Guide: All About FHIR Workflow

Today FHIR has become the widely used HL7 standard by most of the top healthcare organizations. FHIR – A scalable standard use in a variety of contexts including EHR-based data sharing, server communication, mobile applications, and more. Here is all you need to know about FHIR workflow and how FHIR helps to achieve true interoperability.

What is interoperability, and Why FHIR is important?

Interoperability, in the context of healthcare, means the ability of systems that store and use data to exchange that data with other systems without compromising the security or fidelity of the data, and without an undue amount of effort.

For our FHIR discussion, interoperability requires making use of the following paradigms for data storage and exchange:

REST: Use of small lightweight exchanges with low coupling between systems

Messages: To allow communication between multiple resources in a single exchange

Documents: Allows persistence when data spans multiple resources

Services: Allows the use of customer service if the standard service does not fit the requirement

The impact of FHIR in the healthcare industry

EHRs have done their job of collecting and storing healthcare data. With HL7 FHIR, as patients move around the healthcare ecosystem, their electronic health records will be available to support automated clinical decision support and other machine-based processing, also the data will be structured and standardized.

Given the embedded nature of HL7 V2, the transition with FHIR will not happen overnight. The healthcare market will ultimately decide the success of FHIR and whether FHIR survives or coexists with older standards.

RELATED: HL7 VS FHIR: WHAT’S THE REAL DIFFERENCE?

Different FHIR workflows to know about

Communications between applications: Initially a broker may be needed for the applications, like the interface engine that acts as a middleware between different applications that may still use HL7 versions.

Patient engagement: FHIR will be used to provide patients with timely data and alerts using the REST standard.

Link the different EHRs: HL7 FHIR will make it so that all patient data stored in many different data repositories like Health Information Systems (HIS) and Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS) can be liberated and made available to different departments within and outside the healthcare facility.

Vendor Neutral Archive (VNA) or Vendor Neutral Repository: Eventually the goal is to be able to store patient data documents and images or potentially any file of clinical relevance in a standard format with a standard interface, such that they can be accessed in a vendor-neutral manner by other systems. This will allow applications to solve creative workflow problems.

RELATED: TOP 3 REAL TIME FHIR APPLICATIONS IN HEALTHCARE

Interoperability: The Future

The demand for interoperability among healthcare systems has skyrocketed in recent years, especially since the outbreak of COVID-19. With changes in healthcare payment models like value-based reimbursement. There is a raising need for real-time data exchange among healthcare providers to encourage a coordinated care experience. Similar to other convenient living experiences.

Leaders in the healthcare business and policymakers are increasingly focusing on improving interoperability across and among healthcare information systems. As value-based health care models become more prevalent. Payers and providers alike will require more secure ways to communicate and share analytics and data.

FHIR aims to meet these business objectives by using current technologies in an easy-to-use and easily reproducible “app-like” environment. As well as by offering granular data-level access as a step forward from today’s document-based exchange architecture.

FHIR seeks to deliver more seamless networking standards by keeping common cases simple. The proposed standard is a wiser approach to use technology. Because it builds on what is already in place while also allowing for future business demands to be met.

CapMinds HL7 FHIR Services

The implementation of FHIR services creates a better opportunity to achieve interoperability. Today, healthcare organizations are started shifting towards value-based care by implementing new technologies to enhance practice workflow. What to wait for? Getting started with FHIR has become easier today.

CapMinds helps you to achieve true interoperability by offering the best HL7 FHIR SMART integration services for your healthcare practice.