FHIR Implementer Consultation

An essential aspect of the design of the FHIR specification is a focus on supporting what existing systems do now in they way they already do it. In order for HL7 to stay true to this precept, it's essential for healthcare implementers to be engaged in the process of reviewing requirements, particularly where the organization is uncertain about what "typical" software behavior is.

At the same time, implementers tend to be busy people and not all of them are large organizations able to invest in monitoring detailed FHIR design discussions. As well, questions about "what does your system do?" can be a bit awkward to answer when done in a manner that allows easy comparison of competing products and where the comparison may not always be seen to be fair.

For this reason, the FHIR Management Group has instituted a special "implementer consultation process". This purpose of this process is to allow work groups developing FHIR resources and profiles to solicit information about what existing healthcare solutions do now (and occasionally about near-term - < 1 year) plans. The process ensures that the responses to these questions will only be shared in aggregate, protecting the confidentiality of individual implementer respondents.

Who can participate?

This consultation mechanism is open to any implementer of healthcare software that performs (or will soon perform) data exchange with other systems. It is open to both HL7 members and non-members, organizations based in any country and of any size.

Why participate?

The FHIR standard is likely to have a significant impact on software interoperability expectations in the coming years. This process provides a low-cost means (4-6 emails/month, no obligation to respond to any/all) of helping to ensure that the standard reflects the reality of *your* systems.

What this process is not

Note that this process is not to solicit features or design advice. While aggregate responses to HL7-initiated questions will influence the design of the FHIR standard, final decisions on content will be made by the work groups using HL7 decision-making processes. All requests for changes or enhancements to the FHIR specification must be made through work groups developing resources or by using the FHIR Change request submission tool. If you want to have significant influence on the evolution of the FHIR standard, we'd invite you to become members of HL7, participate in working group discussions and voting processes

The Process

The implementer consultation process works as follows:

• Implementers who are willing to be consulted can contact fmg-contact@hl7.org to request being added to the pool of consulted individuals
  • Each participant is listed below. On request, the listing can be anonymized to only reflect size (<10, 10-50, 50+ healthcare software implementation-related employees) and principle country of operation
• Questions will be coordinated through an FMG-appointed sub-group. At present, this sub-group consists of Grahame Grieve (primary author of the original FHIR specification) and a member of the HL7 staff (Lynn Laakso)
• Questions can be raised by HL7 work groups on the FHIR list or in consultation with Grahame. All questions will be filtered for clarity and to manage volume
  • Vendors should expect no more than 4-6 questions/month
• Once an appropriate question is settled upon, it will be sent to the FHIR list server. A separate email will be bcced to all registered implementers.
• After a week, a summary of the responses from all implementers (those received as private replies as well as any made on the public list) will be distributed both to the FHIR list server as well as registered implementers.

This process is an experiment. The FMG will review the functioning of this mechanism of implementer engagement at regular intervals, including seeking feedback from participants.