article

Enabling Better Interoperability for HealthCare: Lessons in Developing a Standards Based Application Programing Interface for Electronic Medical Record Systems

Authors:

Suranga N. Kasthurirathne,

Grahame Grieve,

Paul BiondichAuthors Info & Claims

Journal of Medical Systems, Volume 39, Issue 11

Pages 1 - 8

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-015-0356-6

Published: 01 November 2015 Publication History

Abstract

We sought to enable better interoperability and easy adoption of healthcare applications by developing a standardized domain independent Application Programming Interface (API) for an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. We leveraged the modular architecture of the Open Medical Record System (OpenMRS) to build a Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) based add-on module that could consume FHIR resources and requests made on OpenMRS. The OpenMRS FHIR module supports a subset of FHIR resources that could be used to interact with clinical data persisted in OpenMRS. We demonstrate the ease of connecting healthcare applications using the FHIR API by integrating a third party Substitutable Medical Apps & Reusable Technology (SMART) application with OpenMRS via FHIR. The OpenMRS FHIR module is an optional component of the OpenMRS platform. The FHIR API significantly reduces the effort required to implement OpenMRS by preventing developers from having to learn or work with a domain specific OpenMRS API. We propose an integration pathway where the domain specific legacy OpenMRS API is gradually retired in favor of the new FHIR API, which would be integrated into the core OpenMRS platform. Our efforts indicate that a domain independent API is a reality for any EMR system. These efforts demonstrate the adoption of an emerging FHIR standard that is seen as a replacement for both Health Level 7 (HL7) Version 2 and Version 3. We propose a gradual integration approach where our FHIR API becomes the preferred method for communicating with the OpenMRS platform.

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Cited By

Saripalle R(2019)Fast Health Interoperability Resources FHIRInternational Journal of E-Health and Medical Communications10.4018/IJEHMC.201901010510:1(76-93)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.4018/IJEHMC.2019010105
Kaukinen D(2019)JSON-LD as an Interchange Technology to Facilitate Health Information ExchangeInternational Journal of Extreme Automation and Connectivity in Healthcare10.4018/IJEACH.20190101071:1(66-78)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.4018/IJEACH.2019010107
Kiourtis AMavrogiorgou AMenychtas AMaglogiannis IKyriazis D(2019)Structurally Mapping Healthcare Data to HL7 FHIR through Ontology AlignmentJournal of Medical Systems10.1007/s10916-019-1183-y43:3(1-13)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10916-019-1183-y
Show More Cited By

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Enabling Better Interoperability for HealthCare: Lessons in Developing a Standards Based Application Programing Interface for Electronic Medical Record Systems
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Published In

cover image Journal of Medical Systems

Journal of Medical Systems Volume 39, Issue 11

Sep 2015

306 pages

ISSN:0148-5598

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © Copyright © 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York.

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Plenum Press

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 November 2015

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Cited By

Saripalle R(2019)Fast Health Interoperability Resources FHIRInternational Journal of E-Health and Medical Communications10.4018/IJEHMC.201901010510:1(76-93)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.4018/IJEHMC.2019010105
Kaukinen D(2019)JSON-LD as an Interchange Technology to Facilitate Health Information ExchangeInternational Journal of Extreme Automation and Connectivity in Healthcare10.4018/IJEACH.20190101071:1(66-78)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.4018/IJEACH.2019010107
Kiourtis AMavrogiorgou AMenychtas AMaglogiannis IKyriazis D(2019)Structurally Mapping Healthcare Data to HL7 FHIR through Ontology AlignmentJournal of Medical Systems10.1007/s10916-019-1183-y43:3(1-13)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/s10916-019-1183-y
Ahmad AAzam FAnwar M(2018)Implementation of SMART on FHIR in Developing Countries Through SFPBRFProceedings of the 2018 5th International Conference on Biomedical and Bioinformatics Engineering10.1145/3301879.3301881(137-144)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3301879.3301881

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