This page is part of the FHIR Specification (v0.11: DSTU 1 Ballot 3). The current version which supercedes this version is 5.0.0. For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions . Page versions: R5 R4B R4 R3 R2

Overview 1.7

Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) defines a set of resources for use in exchanging information about the healthcare process. Resources are:

• Atomic - they are the smallest defined unit of operation and have a transaction scope of their own
• Connected - resources refer to other resources to allow for clean modular reuse of information
• Independent - the content of a resource can be processed without having to retrieve referenced resources
• Simple - each resource definition is easy to understand, and to implement without needing specialized tooling or infrastructure (though that can be used if desired)
• RESTful - resources are able to be used in a RESTful exchange context
• Flexible - resources can also be used in non-RESTful contexts, such as messaging or SOA architectures and can be moved in and out of RESTful paradigms as convenient
• Extensible - resources can be extended to allow for local requirements without impacting interoperability
• Webcentric - where possible and appropriate, open internet standards are used for data representation
• Free for use - the FHIR specification itself is open - anyone can implement FHIR or derive related specifications without any IP restrictions

In addition to the basic resources, FHIR defines a lightweight implementation framework that supports the use of these resources in RESTful environments, classic message exchanges, human-centric clinical documents and enterprise SOA architectures. Each of these approaches provides its own benefits - FHIR provides the underpinning enablement that makes the choosing one of these painless and enables enterprises to choose their own paradigm without forsaking interoperability with other approaches.

Though the resources are simple and easy to understand, they are backed by a thorough, global requirements gathering and formal modeling process that ensures that the content of the resources is stable and reliable. The resource contents are mapped to solid underlying ontologies and models using computable languages (including RDF) so that the definitions and contents of the resources can be leveraged by computational analysis and conversion processes.

FHIR also provides an underlying conformance framework and tooling that allows different implementation contexts and enterprises to describe their context and use of resources in formal computable ways and to empower computed interoperability that leverages both the conformance and definitional frameworks.

The combination of the resources and the 3 supporting layers (implementation frameworks, definitional thoroughness, and conformance tooling), along with the completely free license of FHIR itself frees healthcare data so that it can easily flow to where it needs to be (across hospital production systems, mobile clinical systems, cloud based data stores, national health repositories, research databases, etc.) without having to pass through format and semantic inter-conversion hurdles along the way.

Roadmap to the Specification 1.7.1

This specification is structured into 3 parts: background documentation, implementation information and the resource definitions.

Documentation 1.7.1.1

The documentation provides bacvground material that is required to understand and use resources:

• License, Credits, Version History, and outstanding issue list
• General Orientation Information (including this page)
• Information about how resources are defined, and what information exists around them
• Definitions of common data types used through all the resources
• Information about how codes and terminologies are used, and a set of code registries

Implementation 1.7.1.2

The implementation section explains how resources are used in various contexts:

• Exchange Frameworks: the REST API, Messaging, and Document based exchange
• Search/Query infrastructure: The ever important search/query structure
• Downloads to assist with implementation - schemas, code, examples + registry of clinical record examples
• Implementation Support information - including common use cases
• Security Notes

Resources 1.7.1.3

The resources section enumerates and describes the resources. The resources are categorised into 3 groups for ease of navigation:

• Clinical resources: Clinical Record keeping focused on patient related information
• Administrative resources: Entities involved in healthcare: Patients, Providers, Devices, and workflow information including Visit and Order management
• Infrastructural resources: Support resources including to support exchange, audit, and conformance management

For each resource, the following pages are provided:

• Content: Provides context for the resource and defines its content with a simple XML format and some additional description. Formal definitions such as W3C schema and others are also provided. Also describes events and search criteria associated with the resource
• Examples: Provides one or more examples that show how the resource is used
• Formal Definitions: A table of the full formal definitions for each element in the resource along with mappings to other standards and ontologies
• Profiles: A list of profiles of the resource that are provided as part of the standard. Profiles may be provided to illustrate some aspect of the use of a resource or because certain particular uses of a resource are sufficiently common to warrant a standard profile