A novel application of SMART on FHIR architecture for interoperable and scalable integration of patient-reported outcome data with electronic health records

Web-based Prototype for Graphical Exploration of FHIR® Questionnaire Responses

The evaluation of clinical questionnaires is an important part of gaining knowledge in empirical research. The electronically captured responses are encoded in a standard format such as HL7 FHIR® that facilitates data exchange and systems interoperability. However, this also complicates access of the information to explore and interpret the results without appropriate tools. In this work, we present the design of a web-based graphical exploration tool for categorical questionnaire response data that can interact with FHIR-conformant HTTP endpoints. The web app enables non-technical users with simplified, direct visual access to highly structured FHIR questionnaire response data and preserves the applicability in arbitrary data exploration tasks. We describe the abstract feature design with the derived technical implementation to allow a universal, user-configurable data subselection mechanism to generate conditional one- and two-data-dimensional charts. The applicability of our developed prototype is demonstrated on synthetic FHIR data with the source code available at https://github.com/frankkramer-lab/FHIR-QR-Explorer.

Seamless Integration of Computer-Adaptive Patient Reported Outcomes into an Electronic Health Record

BACKGROUND

Patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures have become an essential component of quality measurement, quality improvement, and capturing the voice of the patient in clinical care. In 2004, the National Institutes of Health endorsed the importance of PROs by initiating the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS), which leverages computer-adaptive tests (CATs) to reduce patient burden while maintaining measurement precision. Historically, PROMIS CATs have been used in a large number of research studies outside the electronic health record (EHR), but growing demand for clinical use of PROs requires creative information technology solutions for integration into the EHR.

OBJECTIVES

This paper describes the introduction of PROMIS CATs into the Epic Systems EHR at a large academic medical center using a tight integration; we describe the process of creating a secure, automatic connection between the application programming interface (API) which scores and selects CAT items and Epic.

METHODS

The overarching strategy was to make CATs appear indistinguishable from conventional measures to clinical users, patients, and the EHR software itself. We implemented CATs in Epic without compromising patient data security by creating custom middleware software within the organization's existing middleware framework. This software communicated between the Assessment Center API for item selection and scoring and Epic for item presentation and results. The middleware software seamlessly administered CATs alongside fixed-length, conventional PROs while maintaining the display characteristics and functions of other Epic measures, including automatic display of PROMIS scores in the patient's chart. Pilot implementation revealed differing workflows for clinicians using the software.

RESULTS

The middleware software was adopted in 27 clinics across the hospital system. In the first 2 years of hospital-wide implementation, 793 providers collected 70,446 PROs from patients using this system.

CONCLUSION

This project demonstrated the importance of regular communication across interdisciplinary teams in the design and development of clinical software. It also demonstrated that implementation relies on buy-in from clinical partners as they integrate new tools into their existing clinical workflow.

Designing Interoperable Health Care Services Based on Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources: Literature Review

BACKGROUND

With the advent of the digital economy and the aging population, the demand for diversified health care services and innovative care delivery models has been overwhelming. This trend has accelerated the urgency to implement effective and efficient data exchange and service interoperability, which underpins coordinated care services among tiered health care institutions, improves the quality of oversight of regulators, and provides vast and comprehensive data collection to support clinical medicine and health economics research, thus improving the overall service quality and patient satisfaction. To meet this demand and facilitate the interoperability of IT systems of stakeholders, after years of preparation, Health Level 7 formally introduced, in 2014, the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard. It has since continued to evolve. FHIR depends on the Implementation Guide (IG) to ensure feasibility and consistency while developing an interoperable health care service. The IG defines rules with associated documentation on how FHIR resources are used to tackle a particular problem. However, a gap remains between IGs and the process of building actual services because IGs are rules without specifying concrete methods, procedures, or tools. Thus, stakeholders may feel it nontrivial to participate in the ecosystem, giving rise to the need for a more actionable practice guideline (PG) for promoting FHIR's fast adoption.

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to propose a general FHIR PG to facilitate stakeholders in the health care ecosystem to understand FHIR and quickly develop interoperable health care services.

METHODS

We selected a collection of FHIR-related papers about the latest studies or use cases on designing and building FHIR-based interoperable health care services and tagged each use case as belonging to 1 of the 3 dominant innovation feature groups that are also associated with practice stages, that is, data standardization, data management, and data integration. Next, we reviewed each group's detailed process and key techniques to build respective care services and collate a complete FHIR PG. Finally, as an example, we arbitrarily selected a use case outside the scope of the reviewed papers and mapped it back to the FHIR PG to demonstrate the effectiveness and generalizability of the PG.

RESULTS

The FHIR PG includes 2 core elements: one is a practice design that defines the responsibilities of stakeholders and outlines the complete procedure from data to services, and the other is a development architecture for practice design, which lists the available tools for each practice step and provides direct and actionable recommendations.

CONCLUSIONS

The FHIR PG can bridge the gap between IGs and the process of building actual services by proposing actionable methods, procedures, and tools. It assists stakeholders in identifying participants' roles, managing the scope of responsibilities, and developing relevant modules, thus helping promote FHIR-based interoperable health care services.

Ten Topics to Get Started in Medical Informatics Research

The vast and heterogeneous data being constantly generated in clinics can provide great wealth for patients and research alike. The quickly evolving field of medical informatics research has contributed numerous concepts, algorithms, and standards to facilitate this development. However, these difficult relationships, complex terminologies, and multiple implementations can present obstacles for people who want to get active in the field. With a particular focus on medical informatics research conducted in Germany, we present in our Viewpoint a set of 10 important topics to improve the overall interdisciplinary communication between different stakeholders (eg, physicians, computational experts, experimentalists, students, patient representatives). This may lower the barriers to entry and offer a starting point for collaborations at different levels. The suggested topics are briefly introduced, then general best practice guidance is given, and further resources for in-depth reading or hands-on tutorials are recommended. In addition, the topics are set to cover current aspects and open research gaps of the medical informatics domain, including data regulations and concepts; data harmonization and processing; and data evaluation, visualization, and dissemination. In addition, we give an example on how these topics can be integrated in a medical informatics curriculum for higher education. By recognizing these topics, readers will be able to (1) set clinical and research data into the context of medical informatics, understanding what is possible to achieve with data or how data should be handled in terms of data privacy and storage; (2) distinguish current interoperability standards and obtain first insights into the processes leading to effective data transfer and analysis; and (3) value the use of newly developed technical approaches to utilize the full potential of clinical data.

HL7 FHIR-based tools and initiatives to support clinical research: a scoping review

OBJECTIVES

The HL7® fast healthcare interoperability resources (FHIR®) specification has emerged as the leading interoperability standard for the exchange of healthcare data. We conducted a scoping review to identify trends and gaps in the use of FHIR for clinical research.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We reviewed published literature, federally funded project databases, application websites, and other sources to discover FHIR-based papers, projects, and tools (collectively, "FHIR projects") available to support clinical research activities.

RESULTS

Our search identified 203 different FHIR projects applicable to clinical research. Most were associated with preparations to conduct research, such as data mapping to and from FHIR formats (n = 66, 32.5%) and managing ontologies with FHIR (n = 30, 14.8%), or post-study data activities, such as sharing data using repositories or registries (n = 24, 11.8%), general research data sharing (n = 23, 11.3%), and management of genomic data (n = 21, 10.3%). With the exception of phenotyping (n = 19, 9.4%), fewer FHIR-based projects focused on needs within the clinical research process itself.

DISCUSSION

Funding and usage of FHIR-enabled solutions for research are expanding, but most projects appear focused on establishing data pipelines and linking clinical systems such as electronic health records, patient-facing data systems, and registries, possibly due to the relative newness of FHIR and the incentives for FHIR integration in health information systems. Fewer FHIR projects were associated with research-only activities.

CONCLUSION

The FHIR standard is becoming an essential component of the clinical research enterprise. To develop FHIR's full potential for clinical research, funding and operational stakeholders should address gaps in FHIR-based research tools and methods.