The Plan
FHIR is the new, open way to represent clinical, financial, and administrative data about patients. It is being positioned as a comprehensive solution to many of the interoperability issues in healthcare. It provides a simple way for programmers to read or write data at its source rather than through extracted message streams or files. Programmers are provided simple REST-style commands to FHIR APIs. It works with existing security technology to help ensure HIPAA compliance. The major EHR vendors are currently working on providing some level of FHIR support. Most other HIT vendors are following this lead, although with varying levels of enthusiasm. Over the next few years, we expect to see a significant rise in both the availability and consumption of data via FHIR on the part of providers, payers, and others in healthcare.