FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources)

What does FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) mean in clinical research?

FHIR, short for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, is HL7's standard for exchanging healthcare information electronically. Its basic building block is the resource: all exchangeable content, such as a patient, a condition, a lab observation or a medication, is defined as a resource.^⁠[1] The specification also describes itself as RESTful and defines a web API for reading and exchanging those resources.^⁠[2]

FHIR matters to recruitment because regulation made it widely available. The ONC Health IT Certification Program adopts FHIR Release 4.0.1 as the standard for the certified standardized API for patient and population services, constrained by the US Core Implementation Guide.^⁠[3] That is why EHRs such as Epic and Oracle Health offer FHIR R4 APIs that an approved research application can connect to.

Practical note: what a site's FHIR API exposes varies, especially for clinical notes and scanned documents, so confirm the scope during IT review rather than after. Bond connects through FHIR R4 APIs, HL7 v2 feeds where applicable, or an integration partner; timelines depend on the EHR, the security review and the interface method. See Implementation.