Health Informatics: Data and Interoperability Standards

Once electronic health records and other clinical systems used in patient care are digital, the focus turns to how this health information can be represented and shared using standards. Developing standards that are both sufficiently comprehensive and also implementable in practice is one of the long-standing health informatics challenges in part because of the complexity of the human body and the resultant complexity of patient care. We discuss data and data sharing (interoperability) standards separately but they are inevitably intertwined since the information being shared using interoperability standards is often represented using data standards.

• Working familiarity with the major health care data standards
• Awareness of the web-based tools for accessing the data standards
• HL7 as the global health care interoperability standards organization
• HL7 interoperability standards history
• The HL7 interoperability standards that preceded FHIR
• The FHIR interoperability standard
• The SMART on FHIR EHR connected app platform
• Familiarity with web-based tools for learning and utilizing FHIR and SMART on FHIR