#FHIR is 5 years old today

Aug 11, 2016

Unofficial FHIR project historian Rene Sponk has pointed out that it’s exactly 5 years to the day since I posted the very first draft of what became FHIR: Five years, on August 18th 2011 to be precise, Grahame Grieve published the initial version of FHIR (known as RFH at the time) on his website. The date of the initial version was August 11th - which is the reason for this post today. Congratulations to all involved for helping to create a success - FHIR has gained a lot of interest over the past few years, and a normative version will be published in the near future.

Wow. 5 years! Who would have thought that we’d end up where we are? I really didn’t expect much at all when I first posted RfH back then:

What now? I’m interested in commentary on the proposal. If there’s enough interest, I’ll setup a wiki. Please read RFH, and think about whether it’s a good idea or not

Well, there was enough interest, that’s for sure.

And it’s rather a coincidence, then, that on the 5th anniversary of the first posting, I’ve just posted the ballot version for the STU 3 ballot.  This version is the culmination of a lot of work. A lot of work by a lot of people. Lloyd Mckenzie and I have been maintaining a list of contributers, but so many people have contributed the specification process now that I don’t know if we’re going to be keep even a semblance of meaningfulness for that page. I’ll post a link to that version soon, with some more information about it

p.s. Alert readers will note that the blog post announcing RfH was dated Aug 18th - but it was first posted August 11th.