Camilla Baek

FHIR and Rhapsody Semantic 

June 20, 2019

The digitalization of healthcare data makes patient records easily accessible and understandable. To make informed clinical decisions, data must also be structured and standardized.  

What is FHIR? 

FHIR stands for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources and is a standard that allows for electronic health information exchange. It is focused on targeted requests for specific types of health data and not broad documents that contain a range of different types of health data. FHIR has two powerful capabilities. First, FHIR simplifies implementation without compromising data integrity. Second, FHIR has a mechanism for traceability to the HL7 RIM and other content models.  

A defined standard for these formats and interfaces allows for much simpler integration between FHIR supporting solutions. 

A FHIR resource is the basic building block in FHIR. Any exchangeable content such as data or information is defined as a resource. Resources share a few characteristics which include common set of metadata, human readable part, and a common way to define and represent them.  

HL7 to FHIR Update 

For the past 20 years, HL7 produced healthcare data exchange and information modeling standards. Emerging industry approaches created FHIR – which is an evolving specification.  

How FHIR is relevant for Rhapsody Semantic? 

Rhapsody Semantic is a terminology platform and is unique in having a full set of tools to create and maintain all types of code systems and at the same time. It has high-quality performance and security to handle the biggest healthcare enterprises on run-time look-up. 

FHIR is integrated into Rhapsody Semantic, which allows for easier patient record access and understandability. FHIR has defined terminology focused resources which allow for common requests that are made for terminology lookup and validation. This leads to more informed clinical decisions.  

We look forward to the positive changes the FHIR and Rhapsody Semantic will continue to bring.  

Ready to discuss semantic terminology management for your healthcare organization? Let’s talk

For further reading, check out these resources: 

Related Blogs

Rhapsody Health Solutions Team

How Michigan DHHS supports high quality data exchange with FHIR

Discover how Michigan's Department of Health and Human Services optimizes modern data exchange with Rhapsody

Read more

Camilla Baek

4 reasons why code system versioning is essential

In the rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, the need for robust versioning capabilities is undeniable.

Read more

Shelley Wehmeyer

Standardizing multimodal healthcare data at scale for machine learning: Zephyr AI achieves faster time to value with Rhapsody Semantic

Rhapsody Semantic helps Zephyr AI prepare multimodal healthcare data for machine learning and AI at scale, transforming data into insights and action.

Read more