Title:	FHIR HEALTHCARE DIRECTORIES: ADOPTING SHARED INTERFACES TO ACHIEVE ARCHITECTURE INDEPENDENCE
Author(s):	Timothy Tyndall, Ayami Tyndall
ISBN:	978-989-8533-57-9
Editors:	Pedro Isaías
Year:	2016
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	FHIR, Healthcare Provider Directories, Health Information Exchange, Interoperability
Type:	Short Paper
First Page:	291
Last Page:	295
Language:	English
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Paper Abstract:	Motivation: Healthcare directories are a key tool for achieving interoperability among medical service providers and technology vendors, but past efforts at standardizing directory services have failed to find traction. Current implementations are often overly strict, incompatible with legacy databases, and cumbersome for discovering complex datasets. An architecture-independent system is needed to enable directory services across organizational boundaries. Objective: Develop and deploy a healthcare directory service platform implementing FHIR access to enable discovery of healthcare services by HIE and EHR information systems. A directory backend supports a dataset and a FHIR API provides an abstracted, interoperable query model. Shortcomings of past directory efforts need to be addressed, including the ability to map hierarchical data resources and to enable interoperability by delivering exchange endpoint information. Design: A directory-oriented dataset will be designed using FHIR as a guideline, while also adapting the dataset to meet organizational requirements and to support management of the database outside a FHIR environment. By abstracting the backend to be mapped to FHIR data elements we can provide standardized directory access to a variety of database systems (SQL, LDAP, document-oriented, etc.). Database flexibility enables integration with existing systems while maintaining interoperability through a standardized FHIR API. Conclusion: FHIR is a powerful asset in the development of new healthcare directory services. Its rich data set enables reliable record delivery, while abstracted data mapping allows health information systems to use their choice of underlying databases. FHIR's query specification enables intuitive data retrieval and automatic grouping of related resources into a single response document. By focusing on how data is represented without dictating how it must be stored and managed we can improve exchange and facilitate directory use on a national level through the implementation of open source, fully interoperable tools.
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