Can OpenEHR, ISO 13606, and HL7 FHIR Work Together? An Agnostic Approach for the Selection and Application of Electronic Health Record Standards to the Next-Generation Health Data Spaces

Abstract

In order to maximize the value of electronic health records (EHRs) for both health care and secondary use, it is necessary for the data to be interoperable and reusable without loss of the original meaning and context, in accordance with the findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) principles. To achieve this, it is essential for health data platforms to incorporate standards that facilitate addressing needs such as formal modeling of clinical knowledge (health domain concepts) as well as the harmonized persistence, query, and exchange of data across different information systems and organizations. However, the selection of these specifications has not been consistent across the different health data initiatives, often applying standards to address needs for which they were not originally designed. This issue is essential in the current scenario of implementing the European Health Data Space, which advocates harmonization, interoperability, and reuse of data without regulating the specific standards to be applied for this purpose. Therefore, this viewpoint aims to establish a coherent, agnostic, and homogeneous framework for the use of the most impactful EHR standards in the new-generation health data spaces: OpenEHR, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 13606, and Health Level 7 (HL7) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR). Thus, a panel of EHR standards experts has discussed several critical points to reach a consensus that will serve decision-making teams in health data platform projects who may not be experts in these EHR standards. It was concluded that these specifications possess different capabilities related to modeling, flexibility, and implementation resources. Because of this, in the design of future data platforms, these standards must be applied based on the specific needs they were designed for, being likewise fully compatible with their combined functional and technical implementation.