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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Digit. Health
Sec. Health Informatics
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2024.1480600
This article is part of the Research Topic Ecosystems-Centered Health and Care Innovation View all 6 articles

Interoperability of health data using FHIR Mapping Language: transforming HL7 CDA to FHIR with reusable visual components

Provisionally accepted
Igor Bossenko Igor Bossenko 1*Rainer Randmaa Rainer Randmaa 1*Gunnar Piho Gunnar Piho 2*Peeter Ross Peeter Ross 3,4
  • 1 Department of Software Science, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia
  • 2 Department of Software Scienc, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia
  • 3 Department of Health Technologies, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia
  • 4 Research Department, East Tallinn Central Hospital, Tallinn, Harju County, Estonia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Ecosystem-centered healthcare innovations, such as digital health platforms, patient-centric records, and mobile health applications, depend on the semantic interoperability of health data. This ensures efficient, patient-focused healthcare delivery in a mobile world where citizens frequently travel for work and leisure. Beyond healthcare delivery, semantic interoperability is crucial for secondary health data use. This paper introduces a tool and techniques for achieving health data semantic interoperability, using reusable visual transformation components to create and validate transformation rules and maps, making them usable for domain experts with minimal technical skills.The tool and techniques for health data semantic interoperability have been developed and validated using Design Science, a common methodology for developing software artifacts, including tools and techniques.Results: Our tool and techniques are designed to facilitate the interoperability of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) by enabling the seamless unification of various health data formats in real time, without the need for extensive physical data migrations. These tools simplify complex health data transformations, allowing domain experts to specify and validate intricate data transformation rules and maps. The need for such a solution arises from the ongoing transition of the Estonian National Health Information System (ENHIS) from Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) to Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR), but it is general enough to be used for other data transformation needs, including the European Health Data Space (EHDS) ecosystem.The proposed tool and techniques simplify health data transformation by allowing domain experts to specify and validate the necessary data transformation rules and maps.Evaluation by ENHIS domain experts demonstrated the usability, effectiveness, and business value of the tool and techniques.

    Keywords: FHIR Mapping Language (FML), TermX, Semantic interoperability, data transformation, HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA), HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)

    Received: 21 Aug 2024; Accepted: 13 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Bossenko, Randmaa, Piho and Ross. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Igor Bossenko, Department of Software Science, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia
    Rainer Randmaa, Department of Software Science, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia
    Gunnar Piho, Department of Software Scienc, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.