FHIR is laying a framework for digital disruption to occur. A big part of FHIR’s popularity is that it’s vendor-neutral and free to use, which allows innovators to do things that couldn’t easily be done before. […] The SMART on FHIR app platform and app gallery are great examples. Think of SMART on FHIR like the app store on a smartphone. Some of the apps are designed for physicians to use, such as the Growth Chart app developed by Boston’s Children’s Hospital. The app plots a child’s height and weight against growth charts published by the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) so that physicians can track a child’s growth over time and communicate this to the child’s caregivers.
Other apps in the SMART on FHIR gallery are patient-facing, such as the ClinDat application, which makes it easier for rheumatoid arthritis patients to document which joints are normal, tender, or swollen. These data are captured electronically and sent back to the medical record in real-time to support the clinical care patients receive. The beauty of SMART on FHIR is the apps are vendor neutral and can be ‘plugged-in’ to EHRs and other tools used on multiple devices (particularly mobile devices) that are already integrated into clinicians’ workflows.