The FHIR Business Alliance (FHIRBall) Is Focused on Business Use Cases

In this interview, two health care interoperability leaders make a strong case for the value of the FHIR Business Alliance. We hear about FHIR as a path toward interoperability from Duncan Weatherston, Chief Executive Officer at Smile Digital Health and FHIR Business Alliance Chairperson, and Mario Hyland, Senior Vice President and Founder of AEGIS.net, Inc. and FHIR Business Alliance Board Member and Membership Committee.

The Fast Healthcare Interoperable Resources (FHIR) standard, adopted several years ago by HL7, solves data sharing problems through well-defined, vendor-independent APIs, which are the modern approach to interoperability. Although FHIR is fully established and supported by nonprofit organizations, its implementation has been hampered up to now by lack of a strong business focus.  The FHIR Business Alliance is bringing companies together to address that.

The FHIR Business Alliance—known informally as FHIRBall—attempts to support businesses to adopt and make more effective use of FHIR. The alliance currently has 30 members, but believes that membership would benefit any business that used FHIR for clinical, financial, or research uses.

Weatherston says that FHIRBall can help organizations solve interoperability problems by becoming part of “a group that has already done it.” Hyland says that the alliance seeks a global reach, like FHIR itself. It has members in the UK, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Watch the video for more insights about interoperability, FHIR, and FHIRBall with Mario Hyland from AEGIS and Duncan Weatherston from Smile Digital Health.

Learn more about FHIR Business Alliance: https://www.fhirball.org/

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