The Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources’ (FHIR) standard is a set of rules and specifications for exchanging electronic health care data using Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). APIs and the FHIR standard will enable health IT systems to communicate using a common language. It is a major leap forward in the way patient information used for processing birth and death certificates is shared. By making data sharing faster and more accurate, public health agencies can have real-time access to critical records for reporting vital records data to CDC in timely manner as well as for disease surveillance.

The adoption of FHIR standards across state vital records management systems will bring numerous benefits to public health officials around the nation, including improved accuracy and speed in the processing of birth and death certificates. In addition, data sharing will be more secure and require less manual intervention, helping public health officials improve their ability to track and respond to disease outbreaks.

Voyatek is proud to work with the CDC to help modernize vital records systems and support its initiatives to implement FHIR API functionality. We have been actively involved in testing and evaluating bi-directional APIs from state/local jurisdictions to the National Center for Health Statistics and back, as part of the Vital Records Data Modernization project. We have successfully designed and tested FHIR API functionality for our vital records clients, including New York City’s Bureau of Vital Statistics and Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Health Statistics and Registries—two of the nation’s largest-volume Vital Records jurisdictions. Our experience in this area has allowed us to develop a robust methodology and best practices for implementing the FHIR standards that we are now sharing with other states across the country.