The FHIR Standard for Secure Collaboration in Healthcare

The healthcare industry is constantly improving by introducing new technological solutions. Today, doctors can fill out electronic medical records, prescribe treatment based on information from a patient's wearable device, and much more. The FHIR standard is also among the solutions that greatly benefit the healthcare system.

What do Fast Healthcare Interoperability resources mean?

Fast Healthcare Interoperability resources, or FHIR in short, is a system of standards for exchanging medical data. This solution was developed by HL7. It allows the exchange of many formats and types of information between different healthcare technological ecosystems with the help of REST APIs. 

At the moment, the above-mentioned standard is actively used in the US, as it significantly reduces the time to access all the necessary information. In addition, you can use any device and any software to get informed. Due to the numerous advantages, it is quite predictable that soon more and more countries in the world will be using the FHIR standard.

Who uses FHIR?

This set of standards is actively used by everyone involved in the healthcare sphere, including healthcare providers and patients. But in addition, application developers are also actively incorporating the FHIR standard into their products, so they are also among the category of people who use it. This is a very important element in the development of healthcare products, as it makes it much easier to interact with other services and exchange data.

Read also: Development of an ERP System for Dental Practice Management: Cost and Features

Is FHIR compatible with other healthcare standards?

As we mentioned before, FHIR was created to allow an individual to access information that may be stored in the databases of other organizations. The same can be said about interoperability with other healthcare standards. All kinds of formats and types of data locations are no obstacle in the information exchange process at all. From your device, you can send a query to any database and get an instant response from there in a standardized format.

Why is the FHIR standard important for healthcare?

Today, the demand for the implementation of the FHIR standard is constantly growing. And here are the benefits it is ready to offer healthcare providers:

• Accessibility and clarity. It is logical to assume that a patient can visit different medical institutions and various specialists, who may not be familiar with his medical records. But thanks to the FHIR standard, any medical worker can quickly retrieve patient data (his medical history, previous test results, etc.) from any database. In addition, it is worth mentioning that thanks to the standardized types of different formats, as well as the use of common terminology, the risk of misunderstandings between healthcare professionals is greatly reduced.
• High speed of all processes. There are times when it is not recommended to delay in prescribing treatment. But, getting all the tests from different specialists as well as interviewing the patient about his medical history takes a lot of precious time. The FHIR standard makes it possible to access absolutely all of a patient's data in real time. That means, if a patient has taken a test, the result will immediately be entered into the database and the doctor will be able to see it. This is very important when time is crucial for successful treatment.
• Data reliability and security. Because Fast Healthcare Interoperability resources have standardized data formats that can be easily managed thanks to cloud technology, the security and confidentiality of client information is much better. Thus, all security protocols meet the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

How FHIR works in healthcare organizations

Before the use of the FHIR standard, all medical records about patients were very confusing and fragmented. But, with the implementation of this solution in the systems of medical institutions, this problem no longer exists. From that time each medical worker who deals with a certain patient will have access to all his/her information available in the registries. 

Summarizing all of the above, the FHIR standard is a very useful solution for healthcare organizations, because doctors get:

• all patient data in a common format and with generally accepted terminology
• list of all the medical doctors who have worked with the person and contact them, if necessary
• the absence of any duplicate information about the patient, because it is automatically filtered by the system
• quick retrieval of all necessary information to speed up the process of prescribing treatment
• access to data from any device and any system

Start work with SDH

Software Development Hub is a company that has extensive development experience in custom healthcare software development. Millions of people, including both doctors and patients use our applications, such as EHR Mobile App, Medcard24, Medicine Registry, Medical Information System (MIS) and others that are H7L and HFIR compiliant. In our projects we are focused on quality and speed of information exchange with other applications, which is very important for the healthcare industry.

If you dream to create and implement an innovative solution in your organization, contact our experts for a detailed consultation. 

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