HL7® FHIR® (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) is a standard developed by Health Level Seven International (HL7) to access healthcare data from different systems in a consistent way. Data can be accessed in different systems without having to know how it is stored. Data can then be exchanged with other systems or used by mobile apps or web applications. FHIR is designed to facilitate interoperability by sharing discrete, granular health data using application programming interfaces (APIs).

FHIR enables data senders and receivers to understand health records in the same way. This supports communication between different healthcare organizations and application systems, ensuring that healthcare providers have timely and accurate access to health data crucial for patient care and operational efficiency.

FHIR can help you efficiently retrieve and share disparate healthcare data from various sources like EHR systems, smart medical devices, and wearables.

Supporting the latest standards including FHIR, Health Connect breaks down interoperability barriers, transforming raw health and care data into meaningful and actionable information. Health Connect can help you improve the quality, efficiency, and safety of just about any healthcare service, process, or product by enabling faster and easier access to data from different sources.

Interoperability refers to the ability of healthcare information systems to not only connect, but to exchange, interpret, and use data meaningfully. Using Health Connect and the FHIR interoperability standard, different systems can seamlessly share and understand patient data.

Data integration in healthcare, on the other hand, is about connecting different systems to work together. When disparate systems don’t “speak the same language” converting data in other formats to a universal standard like FHIR, an integration engine can still connect, translate, and exchange data.

A FHIR façade is a FHIR API that provides FHIR data in response to data requests, but has a data source that is not FHIR data. The FHIR façade model provides on-demand access to legacy data in any standard, without duplicating or moving data.

With a FHIR façade approach, Health Connect retrieves requested data from the source and converts it into FHIR data. The technology automatically translates and transforms the data to FHIR format in real-time in response to queries.