Interoperability Standards interview questions

HL7 v2, FHIR, CDA, integration engines, profiles and extensions.

3 questions in Healthcare & Life Sciences.

Healthcare & Life SciencesA 19-minute read on how the topic fits together, before the questions.Healthcare and life sciences fundamentals59 short answers on one page, for revising rather than studying.

medium2

mediumConcept

What is FHIR, and when would you still be dealing with HL7 v2?

FHIR is a resource-oriented REST API with a defined set of resources, constrained for real use by profiles and implementation guides. HL7 v2 is the older pipe-delimited messaging standard that still carries most of the event traffic inside hospitals, so the two coexist and an integration engine translates between them.

5 minmid, senior, staff

mediumConceptDesign

Both systems send a coded lab result and the receiver still cannot use it. Why?

A code means nothing without its code system, its version and a mapping the receiver trusts. Local catalogues dominate, LOINC, SNOMED CT and ICD answer different questions, value set expansions drift with versions, and every local-to-standard map is lossy, owned and perpetually going stale.

6 minmid, senior, staff

hard1

hardScenarioDesign

You are connecting a fifth hospital to the same interface and every one of the first four needed bespoke work. Why does that keep happening?

Because a standard constrains structure and leaves the meaning local. Optionality, local identifiers and code lists, custom extensions and different workflow triggers mean conformance to the standard is not compatibility - which is why the fix is your own profile plus a test suite, not more mapping.

6 minmid, senior, staff