What is FHIR in healthcare? A guide to the HL7 standard
HL7 data standards like FHIR are helping to create connected healthcare ecosystems that empower patients, clinicians, and organisations – and improve patient care and advocacy.
HL7 data standards like FHIR are helping to create connected healthcare ecosystems that empower patients, clinicians, and organisations – and improve patient care and advocacy.
Today’s world is a digitalised and connected place – and our healthcare information needs to be too. Before HL7 and other data standards, important health data was stored in physical office silos and relied on snail mail, fax machines, and error-prone manual entries to share it. Now hospitals, labs, clinics, pharmacies, payers, wearables, and other healthcare systems can easily communicate and share data that’s critical for providing efficient and effective patient care.
Pronounced “fire,” FHIR stands for “fast healthcare interoperability resources.” It’s a data standard designed to allow medical information to flow across different systems using web technologies like REST APIs and XML. Created by HL7, a non-profit organisation that develops global standards for the healthcare industry, FHIR defines a common data model made of modular “resources” that allows many types of health systems to exchange medical records. It also supports exchanging data through RESTful interfaces, as well as messaging and document-based workflows. FHIR is one of the most important standards used today by many commercial and federal initiatives.
FHIR is useful in many real-world hospital and clinical scenarios. Without standards like HL7 FHIR, their systems, apps, and devices couldn’t share critical information for treating and caring for patients. This connectivity is what makes it possible, for example, for an A&E doctor to treat an unconscious patient safely with quick access to their medical history. Or for a patient to be able to access their electronic health records (EHR) before a doctor’s appointment to help them think of questions in advance. It also paves the way for running advanced, AI-driven analytics.
Earlier HL7 standards laid the groundwork for today’s connected healthcare ecosystem by creating common rules for exchanging information. FHIR is the latest iteration, including a cleaner design and web-friendly tools for simpler, faster, and more reliable data sharing.
Health records have fewer errors, typos, or gaps caused by manually entering data from paper documents. Repeat tests and imaging are also reduced, saving time and costs.
FHIR standards create a kind of connected global healthcare network where patients and providers can access complete information regardless of where it was generated.
When patients can view their own health records, they can use them to ask informed questions, stay on top of potential health issues, and advocate for their own care.
Integrating with EHR records and other data sources becomes as straightforward as connecting to a web service, making it easier to build smart solutions and apps in the cloud.
Analytics and AI systems need standardised data for training, making predictions, and generating clinical insights. FHIR does this without having to cleanse or map data.
FHIR uses secure communication and authentication protocols like HTTPS and OAuth 2.0 to comply with data protection standards and control access to sensitive information.
There are three basic components that allow FHIR to exchange healthcare data in a consistent way: FHIR resources, a built-in API, and a dedicated server. Here’s how they all work together.
Through these components and processes, FHIR allows hospitals, apps, and platforms to keep their own software and databases while still consistently exchanging data.
FHIR allows data to be shared across diverse healthcare organisations and systems, including life sciences, providers and payers, pharma companies, and research projects. Each connection requires a different FHIR use case – whether connecting patients with lifesaving cancer research or monitoring patient vitals remotely. Most of these have established implementation guides for faster integrations.
Creates a pathway for laboratories to send new results and diagnostic reports to a clinician’s EHR system – immediately or by request.
Guides: US Core, LOINC
Packages clinical data as anonymised FHIR resources to send to public health agencies per required reporting requirements.
Guides: UDS+ IG, eCR IG
Here's a quick overview of the eight implementation steps:
STEP 1: Decide which parties need to exchange data
Here’s where you choose which use cases you will implement. For example, you might need to exchange data between a hospital and clinic or a mobile app and electronic medical records (EMR) systems. Here are different versions and corresponding implementation guides for specific scenarios, such as sharing lab results or building a patient app.
STEP 2: Choose your FHIR version
Specific vendors, regulators, platforms, and global regions guide which version you will need to use (e.g., R4 or STU3). R4 is FHIR Release 4, v4.0.1 is the most common. Sometimes you may need to exchange data with a system or app built with older versions like DSTU2 or STU3, which you can either match or use an integration engine to connect with.
To support more advanced analytics and AI features, some providers and app developers may require R5, the newest version of FHIR. R4, R5, and future versions all contain “stable,” unchanging content, which makes for an easier transition.
STEP 3: Define your resources and profiles
The most common FHIR resources are used in almost every clinical workflow, from patient registration through to follow-ups and everything in between. They are:
In fact, this is the core set used by national FHIR standards such as Core US and Core UK because they are the most basic elements needed to tell a complete clinical story. Once you’ve defined your resources, the next step is to create profiles, which are basically rules for refining your resource data. They include elements like required fields, codes, and constraints for greater consistency.
STEP 4: Set up your FHIR server
Before data can be exchanged, it needs a home where it can live and be accessible. You have a couple of options: use a managed cloud service and APIs, or run your own open source or vendor-supplied server in your own data centre or cloud. These apps can request or send health data using RESTful web services.
STEP 5: Map existing data to FHIR resources
Different EHR, lab, and billing systems use their own internal formats to store data. This data needs to be mapped to your defined FHIR resources. The process involves transforming codes, IDs, history, and structures so they can be matched to the correct FHIR profile. You’ll also need to decide how to handle updates to the same patient or results so they are accurately represented over time.
STEP 6: Add security, authentication, and access controls
Safeguard your sensitive data and comply with regulations by adding the following security features:
Many platforms and services include these security measures.
STEP 7: Test and validate
Use test apps to make FHIR API calls, and make sure the results show the correct data and codes. You should also run interoperability tests with your partner systems. Stop once you’re sure your data is both technically valid and clinically sound.
STEP 8: Go live and repeat
It’s a good idea to monitor your security logs, error rates, and API performance so you can make tweaks as needed – and inform your next project. You may also need to make adjustments as newer FHIR versions or requirements are released. Once everything is running smoothly, you can start adding new use cases over time.
Here are some proven best practices for a smoother integration process:
A healthcare integration engine is software that connects different healthcare systems, routes messages, formats data, and ensures data is exchanged seamlessly – whether systems use HL7 standards, custom APIs, or their own databases. The engine supports easier compliance with FHIR regulations through the following:
Provides a secure, scalable access point for sharing clinical data in real time. The server supports accessing and exchanging FHIR-compliant data through a standards-based API architecture.
A ready-to-use component that includes built-in configuration tools, validation and mapping logic, and monitoring – to share data easily between legacy healthcare systems and different versions of FHIR apps.
Quickly anonymises data in an FHIR format to share data and run analytics while protecting patients’ personal health information – a requirement of SafeHarbour regulations and the UDS+ federal reporting system.
For so many years, critical health information was frustratingly scattered and hard to share. But today, FHIR is bringing order and clarity to that landscape, giving every system a common language and helping clinicians, patients, and partners work from the same trustworthy picture.
As organisations strengthen their digital foundations, FHIR offers a welcoming path forward. Its modular design and broad industry support make it easier to adopt new tools, connect with partners, and give patients more meaningful access to their own records. And as the healthcare ecosystem continues to evolve, FHIR helps ensure that everyone can move in step, with clearer insights and safer, more coordinated care.
See how Infor Cloverleaf, our award-winning healthcare integration platform, offers a fast, cost-effective way to adopt FHIR standards without replacing your IT investments.