Improving EHR Interoperability: FHIR Utilization in In-Hospital and Community Care Linkages

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Interoperability of electronic health records is a critical challenge in modern healthcare. The article explains that this issue can be solved by utilizing the standard specification called FHIR. Specifically, it emphasizes that using FHIR allows for the standardization of data formats and smooth linkage when exchanging data between different systems, such as hospitals and clinics. It highlights that a major problem arises when patients use multiple medical institutions (such as in regional integrated care systems), leading to fragmented data. By employing FHIR, it becomes possible to build a mechanism that centrally manages and references this dispersed information, thereby improving the quality of care and patient convenience. The article points out that merely sharing information is insufficient; integrating it into actual clinical workflows—such as appointment scheduling or electronic prescriptions—is crucial. Because FHIR possesses the flexibility to handle these diverse medical processes, it is expected to become a standard data exchange foundation for regional healthcare linkage in Japan.