FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources)

FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, pronounced "fire") is a modern healthcare data exchange standard developed by HL7 International. It defines a set of resources and APIs for exchanging electronic health records and other clinical data between systems. FHIR uses RESTful web services and supports common data formats like JSON and XML, making it accessible to modern software developers.

FHIR has become the preferred standard for healthcare interoperability, mandated by the 21st Century Cures Act in the United States for patient data access. It provides standardized resource types for clinical concepts including Patient, Observation (used for vital signs), Condition, Medication, and many others. Each resource has a defined structure that ensures consistent data representation across systems.

For contactless vitals technology, FHIR provides the standard format for transmitting vital signs data into EHR systems. Heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, SpO2, and other measurements are mapped to FHIR Observation resources with appropriate LOINC codes, enabling seamless integration with any FHIR-compliant EHR system without custom data mapping.