FHIR Foreword
Feb 28, 2014FHIR is not a book, and it was not written by a single author; it’s a draft standard, and it was produced by a whole team of people. The formal credits page lists a lot of people, and even that’s being selective. Even though so many people have contributed, I thought I’d post my own personal foreword here: 2½ years ago, I drafted a demonstration, a concept of something that we could do - a better approach to health interoperability. I had no idea that it would turn into a project and a specification that involved this much work, that showed so much promise, and most of all, that there would be so many people to thank.
Ewout Kramer came back to HL7 specifically for the FHIR project, and I’ve been ever so grateful to depend on Ewout for being able to see both the implementer and specification author perspective, and to see across the whole specification. Lloyd Mckenzie imagined the future first, and has been a steady hand editorially, and also has guided FHIR through the HL7 community and processes. Josh Mandel joined the team late, but brought a hard-nosed focus to serving implementation that I greatly appreciated.
Chuck Jaffe was the one who ensured that FHIR came to HL7 in the first place, and that the key, important and difficult stipulation - that FHIR be free - was accepted by the HL7 leadership and community. Without Chuck and the rest of the HL7 leadership (particularly John Quinn), the conditions that let FHIR grow would never have existed in the first place. Thanks.
David Rowlands and Richard Dixon-Hughes provided treasured strategic direction and advice, along with moral support at a critical juncture. David Hay has been a most enthusiastic supporter and evangelist.
The seed that became FHIR was planted over late night drinks in the Orlando bar with Peter Hendler and the team from KP (though they didn’t know it at the time), but many people nourished and fertilized the ground out of which FHIR was born, with key contributions coming from Andrew Goodchild, Woody Beeler, John Duteau, Ken Rubin, Tom Beale, Sam Heard, Hugh and Heather Leslie, Andy Bond, Sarah Gaunt, Ed Hammond, John Quinn, Stan Huff, Dennis Giorkas, Ken Lunn, and Doug Fridsma.
Here’s the list of the people who attended the first connectathon: Keith Boone, Duane Bender, Jean-Henri Duteau, David Hay, Peter Hendler, Ewout Kramer, Joginder Madra, Gordy Raup, Chris White, and some of the observers were Chuck Jaffe, Paul Knapp, John Moehrke, and Rene Spronk. All of these individuals risked coming, we had a great time, and many of them subsequently have made substantial contributions to the specification, community, or marketing of FHIR. And I think (though I’m never sure) that I’d like to thank the marketing committee for choosing the acronym “FHIR” for the work.
Re-reading this list, I’m acutely aware that I’ve missed so many people. At least I can know that many of the others are recognized in the specification itself.
Producing FHIR has been a labor of love for me, one that’s consumed thousands of hours. I’d really like to express my appreciation to Colleen Brooks, Michael Legg, Dave Shaver, and Peter Young, all of who arranged FHIR related work for me in order to contribute to the project. Also, through Chuck Jaffe, HL7 contributed directly to the work. Without these contributions, FHIR could never have happened. I’d also like to greatly thank my wife and daughters, who’ve shared with me the costs of that labor of love, yet aren’t in a position to fully appreciate what it achieves.
And what have we achieved? FHIR is not a solution, it will never solve anything in it’s own right. What we have aimed for, from the beginning, is that FHIR will reduce the complexity and cost of interfacing systems, and by doing so, get integration costs out of the way of people who can then go off and implement a whole range of interesting and useful data exchanges that make real health care more effective all across the world.
Now, it’s up to the community. We’ve baked this cake, but does it taste as good as we think it does? I look forward greatly to the process of finding out.