FHIR UK Core Release 2.0 (STU2)

HL7 UK are pleased to announce the release of FHIR UK Core release 2.0 (STU2)

https://simplifier.net/guide/uk-core-implementation-guide-stu2?version=2.0.0

This is the second release of UK Core and is a standard for trial use. It is ready for use, and recommended for use, but we will continue to gather experience and improve it based on implementer feedback.

Key updates and improvements can be found here:

https://simplifier.net/guide/UKCoreVersionHistory/Home/STU2-Sequence?version=current

See also some background to the process: https://confluence.hl7.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=175611042

This was a substantial effort, with a lot of editing support, and many comments raised and reviewed. Many thanks to all of those involved, who made this release possible.

Those who want to implement UK Core may be interested in UK Core Access, which outlines a REST API for accessing UK Core resources:

https://build.fhir.org/ig/HL7-UK/UK-Core-Access/index.html

By Tania Spence (Elemental)|2024-05-28T15:25:19+00:00May 28th, 2024|Blog|Comments Off

UK Core Access IG Initial Draft

HL7 UK are delighted to share the initial draft UK Core Access Implementation Guide (IG). UK Core Access describes how organisations can provide read-only access to health and care information within the UK, not only for direct care given to individuals but also for subject of care access.

Ben McAlister, Chair, HL7 UK said “This publication builds upon the recent release of base profiles in the UK Core IG and represents a major milestone towards defining a minimum set of FHIR API capabilities for health and care systems to target. Implementation of these capabilities across health and care systems in the UK has the potential to transform the delivery of direct care to individuals across a wide range of settings. Implementation also gives subjects of care the ability to actively participate in putting their own health and care data to use.”

Providing a common baseline will benefit organisations that provide health and care services as well as suppliers of IT systems. Through common information exchange, the IG also allows for innovative applications within health and care that can be more widely and efficiently developed and deployed.

David Hancock, Chair, techUK Interoperability Working Group, said “The work that HL7 UK has done on creating the UK Core Access Implementation Guide is a vital part of driving open interoperability standards across Health and Care. Despite all the work being done on the definition of the content of UK Core, what has been missing is the definition of standard methods of accessing the UK Core content, and this has undoubtedly slowed down adoption of UK Core. I hope the UK Core Access Implementation Guide will be adopted by all EPR and other healthcare software vendors, as through this, we will drive the adoption of HL7 FHIR and UK Core across the UK.”

Both the development build of UK Core Access and the source files are available online for you to review today. We would welcome your feedback on the draft implementation guide before it is further developed. You can provide comments as issues on the repository or by email. For each comment, please include the page address and section number, a description and a proposed change.

We would like feedback on or before Tuesday 30th May, after which we will use these comments to improve UK Core Access.

By Tania Spence (Elemental)|2023-05-15T13:52:53+00:00May 12th, 2023|Blog|Comments Off

FHIR Implementation Guide – Australia

As you may recall, HL7 UK is currently balloting a FHIR Implementation Guide for the UK. The processing of the comments received on this is now nearly complete and we hope to issue the final version very soon.

In the meantime you may be interested in what is being done elsewhere in the world. For example, in Australia they are currently balloting a very similar specification: the Au Base Implementation Guide. This guide specifically supports the use of FHIR^®© in an Australian context however it’s really interesting to see the approach.

By Tania Spence (Elemental)|2022-12-15T09:49:31+00:00December 15th, 2022|Blog|Comments Off

HL7 UK response to How Standards Will Support Interoperability

In May this year the Faculty of Clinical Informatics (FCI) was commissioned by the NHS England Transformation Directorate to help them with consultation on their draft Standards and Interoperability Strategy.

https://facultyofclinicalinformatics.org.uk/blog/faculty-of-clinical-informatics-news-1/post/how-standards-will-support-interoperability-90

Hl7 UK welcomed the draft strategy as an important step forward in improving interoperability between systems used in health and social care and submitted a substantial amount of feedback to FCI.

We understand that the draft strategy has been revised and is ready for publication. In anticipation of that, we are making our full comments document available here.

In summary we made a number of high-level comments about the strategy and focussed on FHIR issues. Our main recommendations were:

Prioritize FHIR

The draft strategy placed considerable emphasis on defining a model care record and an overall architectural approach. Even if these initiatives should be pursued as advocated, we argued they will take a considerable amount of time and resource.

However, significant levels of interoperability can be achieved using FHIR or other HL7 standards, and that is without the proposed initiatives. We therefore strongly recommended that greater, overriding, priority be given to implementing interoperability solutions that are proven and can be deployed in the short term.

We also said the long-standing issue of information not flowing as required between the NHS and social care should also be a priority.

Exploit international initiatives and best practice in the UK

Our key message here was that technical solutions already exist and “we need to be looking at how the rest of world actually achieves interoperability”. We also highlighted the shining examples of the the YHCR (Yorkshire & Humber Care Record) and the SIDeR programme in Somerset.

We suggested that while local FHIR Profiles and IGs (Implementation Guides) are helpful, much progress can be made without them. In addition we pointed out that different versions or releases of FHIR should not be a blocker – these issues are relatively minor in comparison to all the other aspects of major interoperability projects.

Address funding

We were concerned that the strategy did address funding and said “Even if the many other actions that the Centre proposes to take are all achieved, that will be of limited use if there is insufficient funding either for deployments at local level or for central development. If the revised version of the document does not address funding in greater detail, there is a significant risk that the strategy will not have the support or engagement that it would otherwise deserve”.

By Tania Spence (Elemental)|2022-11-10T13:32:03+00:00November 10th, 2022|Blog|Comments Off

UK Core Ballot Update

The first UK Core Ballot is now closed and the comments have been collated. Over 500 comments were received – these will be invaluable in making a UK Core that works well for everyone, Many thanks to all that have contributed.

But of course there is still much more to do in this ballot round. All comments need to be reviewed and acted on. Once some administrative work is done, open review meetings will shortly be announced so do keep an eye on this page for more updates.

The unprocessed collated comments and votes are in this sheet:

HL7 UK Ballot Comment Submission Sheet (UK Core 0.1.0) – Consolidated 2022-01-04.xlsx

See https://confluence.hl7.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=81008141 for details.

By Tania Spence (Elemental)|2022-01-19T12:24:46+00:00January 18th, 2022|Blog|Comments Off

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