Application of HL7 FHIR in a Microservice Architecture for Patient Navigation on Registration and Appointments

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how HL7 FHIR can be integrated into a microservices architecture to improve interoperability and patient navigation in hospital settings, through a prototype system handling registration and appointments.

Contribution

It presents a novel microservices-based prototype utilizing HL7 FHIR for patient navigation, showcasing architecture design and interface development for real-world healthcare scenarios.

Findings

Microservices architecture effectively isolates information domains.

Synchronous communication enables real-time data querying and recording.

The approach enhances interoperability in hospital environments.

Abstract

Electronic Health Record Systems (EHR-S) are commonly developed in monolithic architectures. This architectural style presents greater complexity and demands more effort when we think of interoperability. A solution proposal is the creation of Microservices that use HL7 FHIR as an interoperability strategy. In this sense, it is presented the development of a prototype, based on a microservices architecture, to act in a real scenario of Patient Navigation (PN). The problem was subdivided into 3 steps: definition of architecture, development and construction of an interface to simulate the role of the navigator. The Patient and Appointment microservices are capable of synchronous communication to query and record information. In general, the implemented architectural style not only isolates information domains but can receive data from multiple sources while maintaining essential functionality. This type of approach plays a crucial role in a hospital environment, specifically in PN, highlighting the importance of the standard and expanding the possibilities for further research to be conducted.