The System C & Graphnet Care Alliance has announced a major adoption of the FHIR interfacing standard to make easier the sharing of health and care information and to stimulate digital innovation.
The companies are launching cloud-based platforms which offer customers and authorised third parties a package of open APIs using FHIR-based standards. The APIs will be available in a rolling programme right across all Care Alliance products – including shared care records, child health, EPR, and social care solutions.
First to be launched is Graphnet’s open interoperability platform, offering FHIR APIs to the CareCentric shared record software. It will give their customers secure access to the wealth of real- time and near real-time information held in the CareCentric shared care record and provide a standard for integration with other healthcare applications. It will be available to the all company’s shared record customers, including Local Health and Care Record Exemplars (LHCREs).
This will allow for record sharing across organisational boundaries, linking one shared record system with another and creating a framework for open application development. It will also enable the CareCentric shared record to become an integration and open application platform, encouraging innovative new apps and new uses to help drive improvements in patient care and in managing the health of a population.
One example comes from social care, Liquidlogic is generating the nine FHIR messages necessary for hospital assessments, discharges and withdrawal notices. These are being implemented with four councils by March 2019.
The large-scale adoption of FHIR is being delivered on top of System C and Graphnet’s internal APIs which are already widely used for integration across the Care Alliance product range, and which will be brought into line with national standards as they are released under a standard licensing arrangement.
Beverley Bryant, chief operating officer at System C & Graphnet Care Alliance, said: “The drive for interoperability between our systems and third parties has been steadily growing as our users across health and social care expand their adoption of health technologies. The FHIR programme will offer customers an extensive package of FHIR services and a robust and secure framework for open access as part of the product catalogue.
“This move to FHIR, and the very clear commitment to interoperability from the Secretary of State Matt Hancock, will bring a welcome sense of order to the market. We are writing to all our customers and will be meeting with them to discuss the level of supporting services required, including timescales for individual API packages and pricing models.”
