Hi team,
We are currently working on a Japanese data exchange project and we want to know if it is possible for us to connected to FHIR supported data exchange platforms(especially technical, compliance , regulation requirements related to the collaboration). It would be really appreciated if we could arrange a call to discuss about the subject and other technical details about FHIR.
Thanks and regards,
Yu
to be
FHIR is managed by a community of volunteers, so we’re not really set up to hold phone calls. There are a number of test servers you can use to experiment with FHIR linked to at the bottom of the FHIR home page. FHIR itself is free - so there’s no regulatory issues around using it. There are, of course, national and regional regulations that any FHIR interfaces would need to comply with.
Thanks so much!
We have done some research by ourselves but there are still a few questions that we could not find the answers to. Would you kindly please tell us some more information about these questions?
a. Data / Metadata is standardized to fit the datatype/framework defined by FHIR and this framework can also be referenced from a W3C defined model. Is that right?
b. To ensure Data source reliability, is there any functionality / framework which manages data history, or data processing logging / management (if data providers process their data before providing)
C. On data connection/ alignment, is there any technology utilized to manage Data ID, regarding data provided from each data provider? Or to rephrase, is there any technology used to ensure each dataset is kept unique?
d. On data connection, we understand that ID certification, and related technologies will be the key point. Could you kindly tell us (1) the main player of certification (Data provider/ platform), (2) the timing of certification, and (3) the technologies used for certifications.
e. In the platform of interest, when connecting / aligning data platforms using FHIR softwares, what are the technique requirements for each end user? Is there a centralized infrastructure to control all the data transactions or maybe in charge of authentication management?
f. Does FHIR have something like a roadmap for future development?
g. We are aware that FHIR is a free product. How could the team manage to operate, do they have financial support from public organizations?
h. Since you mentioned that there are regional regulations that any FHIR interfaces would need to comply with, are there any measures taken to correspond to the “Agreement between Japan and the United States of America Concerning Digital Trade”? Or, are there any concerns / potential effects by these agreements?
Agreement between Japan and the United States of America Concerning Digital Trade
a) Not sure what you mean by “W3C-defined model”. You can express FHIR in accordance with W3c XML schemas. Provenance is mapped to a W3C model.
b) There is a history operation as well as an AuditEvent and Provenance
c) Most resources have an ‘identifier’ element that allows tracking globally unique identifiers that can be transported between servers and can be used to disambiguate/match data.
d) FHIR is a data exchange standard. There are no certification processes against the base standard. Certification - if it happens - occurs against specific implementation guides that constrain the use of the standard for use in particular contexts.
e) FHIR supports a variety of exchange architectures and authentication mechanisms. The most popular is using REST interfaces with OAuth, but there are many other options for exchange and similar options for security and authentication
f) Most resources that we expected to have have already been developed. There are roadmaps for individual areas of FHIR in the modules listed on the home page. You can see an example here
g) FHIR is published by HL7. HL7 is funded by members who choose to support the standard development process and/or to have the right to vote on future versions of the standard. Japan has an HL7 affiliate whose member helps to support the development of the standard
h) I’m not aware of any concerns. Regulation tends to be on things like “what codes are used to represent allergies or drugs”, “what regional extensions to capture country-specific data elements are used?”, etc.