Abstract

Objectives

To provide a real-world example on how and to what extent Health Level Seven Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) implements the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) guiding principles for scientific data. Additionally, presents a list of FAIR implementation choices for supporting future FAIR implementations that use FHIR.

Materials and methods

A case study was conducted on the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care-IV Emergency Department (MIMIC-ED) dataset, a deidentified clinical dataset converted into FHIR. The FAIRness of this dataset was assessed using a set of common FAIR assessment indicators.

Results

The FHIR distribution of MIMIC-ED, comprising an implementation guide and demo data, was more FAIR compared to the non-FHIR distribution. The FAIRness score increased from 60 to 82 out of 95 points, a relative improvement of 37%. The most notable improvements were observed in interoperability, with a score increase from 5 to 19 out of 19 points, and reusability, with a score increase from 8 to 14 out of 24 points. A total of 14 FAIR implementation choices were identified.

Discussion

Our work examined how and to what extent the FHIR standard contributes to FAIR data. Challenges arose from interpreting the FAIR assessment indicators. This study stands out for providing a real-world example of a dataset that was made more FAIR using FHIR.

Conclusion

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that formally assessed the conformance of a FHIR dataset to the FAIR principles. FHIR improved the accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of MIMIC-ED. Future research should focus on implementing FHIR in research data infrastructures.

Details

Title
Assessing the use of HL7 FHIR for implementing the FAIR guiding principles: a case study of the MIMIC-IV Emergency Department module
Author
Philip van Damme 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Löbe, Matthias 2 ; Benis, Nirupama 1 ; de Keizer, Nicolette F 1 ; Cornet, Ronald 1 

 Department of Medical Informatics, Amsterdam UMC location University of Amsterdam , Amsterdam, The Netherlands 
 Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology (IMISE), University of Leipzig , Leipzig, Germany 
Publication year
2024
Publication date
Apr 2024
Publisher
Oxford University Press
e-ISSN
25742531
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3201503712
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.