Designing Interoperable Health Care Services Based on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources: Literature Review

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Digital Health
• Healthcare Systems Engineering

Background:

• The digital economy and aging population drive demand for innovative healthcare delivery and data interoperability.
• Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) was introduced to facilitate IT system interoperability among healthcare stakeholders.
• Existing FHIR Implementation Guides (IGs) lack actionable methods, creating a gap in practical service development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a general FHIR Practice Guideline (PG) to aid healthcare stakeholders in understanding FHIR.
• To facilitate the rapid development of interoperable healthcare services using FHIR.

Main Methods:

• Selected and categorized FHIR-related papers and use cases into data standardization, management, and integration groups.
• Reviewed processes and techniques within each group to develop a comprehensive FHIR PG.
• Validated the PG's effectiveness and generalizability using an external use case.

Main Results:

• The FHIR PG comprises a practice design detailing stakeholder roles and data-to-service procedures.
• It includes a development architecture with tools and actionable recommendations for each practice step.

Conclusions:

• The FHIR PG effectively bridges the gap between IGs and practical service development.
• It assists stakeholders in defining roles, managing responsibilities, and developing FHIR-based interoperable services.