HL7 Releases New FHIR Update

HL7 has announced the release of a new version of FHIR designed to link it with real-world concepts and players in healthcare, marking the third of five planned updates. It’s also issuing the first release of the US Core Implementation Guide.

FHIR release 3 was produced with the cooperation of hundreds of contributors, and the final product incorporates the input of more than 2,400 suggested changes, according to project director Grahame Grieve. The release is known as STU3 (Standard for Trial Use, release 3).

Key changes to the standard include additional support for clinical quality measures and clinical decision support, as well as broader functionality to cover key clinical workflows.

In addition, the new FHIR version includes incremental improvements and increased maturity of the RESTful API, further development of terminology services and new support for financial management. It also defined an RDF format, as well as how FHIR relates to linked data.

HL7 is already gearing up for the release of FHIR’s next version. It plans to publish the first draft of version 4 for comment in December 2017 and review comments on the draft. It will then have a ballot on the version, in April 2018, and publish the new standard by October 2018.

Among those contributing to the development of FHIR is the Argonaut project, which brings together major US EHR vendors to drive industry adoption of FHIR forward. Grieve calls the project a “particularly important” part of the FHIR community, though it’s hard to tell how far along its vendor members have come with the standard so far.

To date, few EHR vendors have offered concrete support for FHIR, but that’s changing gradually. For example, in early 2016 Cerner released an online sandbox for developers designed to help them interact with its platform. And earlier this month, Epic announced the launch of a new program, helping physician practices to build customized apps using FHIR.

In addition to the vendors, which include athenahealth, Cerner, Epic, MEDITECH and McKesson, several large providers are participating. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Intermountain Healthcare, the Mayo Clinic and Partners HealthCare System are on board, as well as the SMART team at the Boston Children’s Hospital Informatics Program.

Meanwhile, the progress of developing and improving FHIR will continue.  For release 4 of FHIR, the participants will focus on record-keeping and data exchange for the healthcare process. This will encompass clinical data such as allergies, problems and care plans; diagnostic data such observations, reports and imaging studies; medication functions such as order, dispense and administration; workflow features like task, appointment schedule and referral; and financial data such as claims, accounts and coverage.

Eventually, when release 5 of FHIR becomes available, developers should be able to help clinicians reason about the healthcare process, the organization says.

   

Categories