What is FHIR and what are its top alternatives?
Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) is a standard for exchanging healthcare information electronically. It is designed to enable the exchange of structured healthcare data in a standardized format by utilizing modern web technologies. Key features of FHIR include interoperability, flexibility, scalability, and support for RESTful APIs. However, limitations of FHIR include the complexity of implementation, lack of widespread adoption, and potential security concerns.
- HL7 v2: HL7 version 2 is a widely used standard for exchanging healthcare information. It is known for its simplicity and widespread adoption in the healthcare industry. However, it lacks some of the advanced features and flexibility offered by FHIR.
- CDA: Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) is another standard for structuring clinical documents. While CDA is well-established, it may not offer the same level of interoperability as FHIR due to its document-centric approach.
- IHE Profiles: Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) profiles provide implementation guides for interoperability in healthcare settings. While IHE profiles offer specialized solutions for specific use cases, they may not have the same level of flexibility as FHIR.
- SMART on FHIR: SMART on FHIR is an extension of FHIR that focuses on combining FHIR-based data with application development. It enables the creation of interactive healthcare apps that can securely access data from FHIR servers.
- DICOM: Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) is a standard for handling, storing, printing, and transmitting medical imaging information. While DICOM is essential for imaging data, it may not provide the same level of interoperability for non-image healthcare data compared to FHIR.
- OpenEHR: OpenEHR is an open standard for healthcare information that focuses on structuring clinical data using archetypes and templates. While OpenEHR offers a flexible and customizable approach to healthcare data modeling, it may not have the same level of industry adoption as FHIR.
- HL7 FHIRCast: HL7 FHIRCast is a standard for real-time health data sharing between healthcare applications. It enables the broadcasting of healthcare events and data updates to subscribing applications, allowing for seamless integration and data sharing.
- IHE FHIR Profiles: IHE FHIR Profiles are implementation guides that leverage FHIR for specific interoperability needs in healthcare. While IHE FHIR Profiles provide standardized solutions for interoperability, they may require additional implementation effort compared to FHIR.
- SMART Health IT: SMART Health IT is an open, standards-based technology platform that enables healthcare apps to connect with EHRs, PHRs, and other health IT systems. It provides tools and resources for app developers to leverage FHIR for interoperability.
- CCD/CCR: Continuity of Care Document (CCD) and Continuity of Care Record (CCR) are standards for structuring patient summary data. While CCD/CCR are commonly used for exchanging patient information, they may not offer the same level of granularity and flexibility as FHIR.
Top Alternatives to FHIR
- REST
An architectural style for developing web services. A distributed system framework that uses Web protocols and technologies. ...
- JSON
JavaScript Object Notation is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language. ...
- Google Cloud Healthcare API
Bridges the gap between care systems and applications built on Google Cloud. By supporting standards-based data formats and protocols of existing healthcare technologies. ...
- NextGen Connect
It is a cross-platform interface engine used in the healthcare industry that enables the management of information using bi-directional sending of many types of messages. The primary use of this interface engine is in healthcare. ...
- DHIS2
It is the flexible, web-based open-source information system with awesome visualization features including GIS, charts and pivot tables. ...
- OpenEMPI
In order for an organization to be able to aggregate and manage clinical data on behalf of a patient, it is of utmost importance that the organization is able to accurately identify distinct patients whose data is collected across multiple sources. The presence of duplicate patient demographic records in a system introduces many inefficiencies and costs to an organization. Various industry studies have concluded that the rate of duplicate records in a typical Electronic Medical Record system ranges between 5 and 20 percent of all patient records. By using OpenEMPI, an organization can quickly and accurately identify and resolve duplicate records in their systems, resulting in improved quality of care and considerable cost savings. ...
- DrugsDisclosed
It is a new patient-powered medication insights platform, the ‘medication Trustpilot’, allows patients to share real world experiences of their medicines. ...
- MeandR
Choose how far you want to go and how fast. It will work out a route for you to complete and then time how long it takes. You can also choose your own target by tapping on the map and it will work out a route to get you there. ...
FHIR alternatives & related posts
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- Widely supported4
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Application and Data: Since my personal website ( https://alisoueidan.com ) is a SPA I've chosen to use Vue.js, as a framework to create it. After a short skeptical phase I immediately felt in love with the single file component concept! I also used vuex for state management, which makes working with several components, which are communicating with each other even more fun and convenient to use. Of course, using Vue requires using JavaScript as well, since it is the basis of it.
For markup and style, I used Pug and Sass, since they’re the perfect match to me. I love the clean and strict syntax of both of them and even more that their structure is almost similar. Also, both of them come with an expanded functionality such as mixins, loops and so on related to their “siblings” (HTML and CSS). Both of them require nesting and prevent untidy code, which can be a huge advantage when working in teams. I used JSON to store data (since the data quantity on my website is moderate) – JSON works also good in combo with Pug, using for loops, based on the JSON Objects for example.
To send my contact form I used PHP, since sending emails using PHP is still relatively convenient, simple and easy done.
DevOps: Of course, I used Git to do my version management (which I even do in smaller projects like my website just have an additional backup of my code). On top of that I used GitHub since it now supports private repository for free accounts (which I am using for my own). I use Babel to use ES6 functionality such as arrow functions and so on, and still don’t losing cross browser compatibility.
Side note: I used npm for package management. 🎉
*Business Tools: * I use Asana to organize my project. This is a big advantage to me, even if I work alone, since “private” projects can get interrupted for some time. By using Asana I still know (even after month of not touching a project) what I’ve done, on which task I was at last working on and what still is to do. Working in Teams (for enterprise I’d take on Jira instead) of course Asana is a Tool which I really love to use as well. All the graphics on my website are SVG which I have created with Adobe Illustrator and adjusted within the SVG code or by using JavaScript or CSS (SASS).
I use Visual Studio Code because at this time is a mature software and I can do practically everything using it.
It's free and open source: The project is hosted on GitHub and it’s free to download, fork, modify and contribute to the project.
Multi-platform: You can download binaries for different platforms, included Windows (x64), MacOS and Linux (
.rpm
and.deb
packages)LightWeight: It runs smoothly in different devices. It has an average memory and CPU usage. Starts almost immediately and it’s very stable.
Extended language support: Supports by default the majority of the most used languages and syntax like JavaScript, HTML, C#, Swift, Java, PHP, Python and others. Also, VS Code supports different file types associated to projects like
.ini
,.properties
, XML and JSON files.Integrated tools: Includes an integrated terminal, debugger, problem list and console output inspector. The project navigator sidebar is simple and powerful: you can manage your files and folders with ease. The command palette helps you find commands by text. The search widget has a powerful auto-complete feature to search and find your files.
Extensible and configurable: There are many extensions available for every language supported, including syntax highlighters, IntelliSense and code completion, and debuggers. There are also extension to manage application configuration and architecture like Docker and Jenkins.
Integrated with Git: You can visually manage your project repositories, pull, commit and push your changes, and easy conflict resolution.( there is support for SVN (Subversion) users by plugin)