The rise of digitization has affected and transformed practically every industry.

This transformation has extended to the healthcare industry, where several developments have entirely changed the way operations are conducted.

Eight Reasons to Implement FHIR

One such development is FHIR. Short for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, FHIR is a healthcare data exchange standard created by HL7 or Health Level Seven.

It has resulted in several healthcare sector changes by introducing advanced tools for secure data exchange, including PHI, EMR, and Diagnostic Data.

With advanced technologies, FHIR is commonly used across various healthcare organizations. It results in easy and manageable system integrations for better interoperability.

Here are eight reasons why you implementing FHIR is critical in today’s day and age:

Improved Data Management

Data forms the backbone of the healthcare organization, and outdated systems create several problems due to varying formats and sources. Additionally, data exchange involves various frequencies and volumes, which can cause further problems.

FHIR resolves these issues because all information involved uses a standard common target data format. This common format ensures the information is usable and establishes data consistency, accuracy, and integrity.

It also eliminates any ambiguity and reduces redundant data. This way, FHIR will help you create a data catalog that’ll help you track data extensively.

Reduced Bottlenecks

Interoperability ensures data can be transmitted, shifted, and understood seamlessly between different systems without any restrictions by simply using a platform.

FHIR results in the same benefits since it ensures physicians and doctors from various departments in any healthcare facility can transmit records, data, and files in real-time.

The smooth transmission of critical information can help save valuable time and even lives. It results in a holistic approach where different healthcare professionals can view any patient’s background information and provide adequate care.

This interoperability applies to both face-to-face and virtual consultations, making it possible for telemedicine professionals to treat their patients online as well.

In fact, this telemedicine guide reports that in March 2020, largely due to the pandemic, 41% of healthcare providers used this technology to treat their patients.

Enhanced Data Mining

AI and machine learning are changing organizations rapidly and can further contribute to FHIR to enhance efficiency and provide considerable benefits to healthcare facilities and patients alike.

To maximize benefits to your organization, your machine learning models must have sufficient data to make reliable predictions. Additionally, this data needs to be of high quality with excellent coverage and should also be appropriately formatted.

With appropriate raw data to work with, you can use AI to make valuable recommendations and guide you to utilize your resources most efficiently.

Better Clinical Treatments

FHIR results in a better patient experience due to increased access to EMR and volumes of patient-related data. Therefore, clinical researchers and healthcare professionals such as those from HealthTECH Resources can improve the care they provide patients, and access to extensive patient information is of incredible value for the healthcare industry.

Perhaps what gives FHIR an edge over other data sharing standards is that it can be implemented with REST web services. REST services can work with open source technologies which can decrease your implementation costs.

Improved Patient Experience

FHIR is considerably easy to integrate and implement across numerous applications and devices.

Before FHIR, patients would receive crucial data in massive text files or disorganized CDs and printouts. Due to this, every organization struggles with making these documents interactive or organized.

Unlike past practices, FHIR increases transparency and empowers patients. When patients have access to critical information, they can easily manage and track their records, further increasing trust and improving the cooperation between patients and healthcare service providers.

Moreover, patients can also share their medical health data securely by authorizing their access to health data to any patient data aggregator application.

Easy to Implement

Contrary to what you may think, FHIR isn’t as difficult to implement. It’s important to note that FHIR has to be based on Atom, OAuth, XML, JSON, or HTTP structures.

Luckily, all developers today are skilled at these and will have no problem working with them.

Additionally, you can have the HL7 interface up and running in as little as a day since it’s straightforward and quite easy to understand.

This process will be even easier if you have an excellent integration engine since it’ll speed things up.

It’s Vendor-Friendly

Data sharing plays a crucial role in improving the patient and service provider relationship, so simplifying the process is imperative. Due to this, numerous vendors are participating in the Argonaut project to improve interoperability in the healthcare sector.

The Argonaut project in its essence is an implementation community consisting of leading tech vendors and provider organizations to boost the use of OAuth and FHIR in healthcare information exchange.

This participation has helped create multiple innovative applications built with SMART. All of these apps are vendor-neutral and can be run on EHRs.

Mobile Friendly

As a platform, FHIR uses technologies that can easily be implemented and accessed on mobile phones. Since most mobile devices support programs with JSON and HTTP, this has led to a significant boost in the number of applications around medicine and healthcare applications.

This is especially useful since, over the years, smartphone usage has experienced a rapid increase, especially compared to desktop usage. This is precisely why the mobile-friendliness of FHIR is helpful since it’s made the healthcare industry more accessible.

Final Thoughts

The demand for interoperable healthcare systems has never been higher, and this has only grown after the outbreak of COVID-19. Healthcare payment models have changed and introduced innovations like value-based reimbursement, increasing the demand for real-time data exchange for a coherent care experience.

FHIR is undoubtedly a huge step forward for your organization, but it’ll result in improved patient access and interoperability.

It’ll give way to unlimited opportunities to improve the quality and experience of the care your organization provides.