HL7® FHIR® (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) is a standard developed and maintained by HL7 International. It models clinical and administrative data as discrete, well-defined resources — Patient, Observation, Encounter, MedicationRequest and many more — and exposes them through a RESTful API using JSON or XML.
Because FHIR uses the same web technologies developers already know, applications can read and write health data far more easily than with older message-based standards like HL7 v2. Implementation guides such as US Core constrain FHIR for specific regions and use cases, so systems agree not just on format but on meaning.
In the United States, regulations including the 21st Century Cures Act and CMS interoperability rules have made standardized FHIR APIs central to patient access, payer data exchange and EHR certification — which is why choosing the right FHIR partner has become a strategic decision.