Have you read the 2024 State of FHIR Survey Results?
I was surprised by some of the findings.
The survey was global and received answers from HL7 affiliates and organizations in 29 countries.
What became clear to me on reading the results was that there is a bias on sites like LinkedIn when it comes to FHIR news. We hear a lot about the US, a lot about payers and a lot about server providers.
What the survey results highlight is how much is going on in the rest of the world that we don’t hear much about.
There were three surprising takeaways for me.
1. Which countries have regulations that mention FHIR?
It’s not just the US with its “Final Rule”. 14 countries have regulations that specifically mandate FHIR use and three more have regulations that advise FHIR use. Surprises for me were Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines — not exactly small countries!
2. Who is adopting FHIR?
You’d be forgiven for thinking FHIR use was dominated by large national programs or Payers. Of the 5 available categories “EHR vendors” and “App developers” dominated. Despite the heavy Payer focus in the US (and on LinkedIn) this does not surprise me. Private companies are using FHIR to an extent that is not obvious to an outsider.
3. What are the key challenges in FHIR adoption?
“Lack of FHIR Knowledge” dominates this question and that should not surprise anyone. What did surprise me were the 3 other key answers:
- High investment costs
- Unclear regulations
- Unclear benefits
We should be doing a better job selling the benefits of FHIR and explaining the regulations in terms that humans can more easily understand. I read a lot about US regulations, but the language is dry and far too technical. We can do better here.
The survey results are 6 months old, but there’s a wealth of valuable data inside. I encourage everyone to read it.
[Thanks to HL7 and Firely for putting this together and for publishing the results.]
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