Data availability that drives better healthcare and faster innovation
The healthcare sector is sitting on massive mountains of data that, if fully utilised, could undoubtedly improve healthcare by leaps and bounds.
This starts with doctors having all the data and tools at hand to make optimal decisions and offer their patients the best possible — and more personalised — care. But the benefits go further: sharing that same data and using it for research and development would enable the faster, more targeted development of new medicines, systems and devices.
Prerequisites for data sharing: standardisation and security
For this process to run smoothly, data must be standardised and usable in multiple ways: you don’t want to burden healthcare providers (who are often already overtasked) with additional data entry and administration.
Another prerequisite is uncompromising data security, combined with strong guarantees for patient privacy. After all, no one wants their personal medical data to be exposed.
Regulations
Regarding the first point, FHIR is increasingly emerging as the standard for data exchange in healthcare. A growing list of governments, both at home and abroad, are incorporating FHIR into their regulations. The European Union is also promoting the use of the FHIR standard in its newly established European Health Data Space (EHDS).
Equally, there are many regulatory initiatives around data security and patient privacy.
FHIR for the MedTech sector
FHIR is also the ideal standard for the medical technology and HealthTech industries. It enables medical devices and systems to communicate smoothly and in a standardised way with electronic health records and other healthcare systems, using modern web technologies such as REST APIs. Integrations are simplified, and devices can share data with care providers in real-time.
For MedTech companies, the FHIR standard allows easier access to data, speeding up innovation. In the end, it’s all about better care for the patient — and the fast availability of health data truly makes a difference.
Getting started
At Amaron, Belgium’s healthcare integration specialist, we recognised this trend early and were among the first to work with FHIR. As a result, we now offer a broad FHIR portfolio, with FHIR Station as the central component — a solution that more and more healthcare organisations rely on to share data across care settings.
- Feature-rich FHIR Station enables healthcare organisations to unlock data from their software systems (such as the EHR) and make it available for various uses, both primary (patient care) and secondary (research, innovation, policy support, etc.). FHIR Station also enables writing data back to those systems, as it manages FHIR data traffic in both directions.
- With the clear and user-friendly interface, users can precisely define which data they share, with whom, and for how long. This allows them to better control sensitive medical information and restrict data sharing to only what is strictly necessary. Data can also be pseudonymised when needed.
- Every interaction with FHIR Station is meticulously logged, so it’s easy to trace who accessed what information.
- Powerful support tools help ensure information is made available in a high-quality and accurate way.
- FHIR Station is a scalable solution: healthcare organisations can start small and expand the solution as they face more data-sharing projects.
