Data Readiness
Knowledge BaseLife-sciences R&D
93 profiles ·
practical standards guide

Standard · R5 · 5.0.0 · STU

HL7® FHIR® R5

Maintained by HL7

What it helps you do

Move healthcare facts between systems using standard, web-friendly resources and APIs.

  • Clinical
  • Real-world evidence
PlanAcquireHarmonizeExchangeLearn + reuse

01

Where it fits and where it does not

Use these four checks before committing implementation time.

Use it when
You need an operational exchange boundary between healthcare systems, an eSource feed, a registry interface, or a clinical-research integration built against a named implementation guide.
Limits
Do not use base FHIR conformance as proof of conformance to a research implementation guide, and do not treat FHIR as an analysis-ready warehouse or submission dataset.
Best for
Interoperability architects, clinical informaticians, integration engineers, and research teams bringing EHR data into a governed workflow.
Maturity
EstablishedFHIR R5 is established as an exchange standard, but R5 is a Standards for Trial Use release and maturity varies by resource, package, and implementation guide.

02

See it in the workflow

This view shows the input, the change the standard introduces, and the resulting output.

  1. InputWhat starts

    EHR facts such as Patient, Observation, Medication, and Specimen records plus their local codes and provenance

  2. FHIR®What changes

    A named FHIR release, implementation guide, profiles, terminology bindings, and API contract

  3. OutputWhat becomes possible

    Validated resources that another authorized system can request, interpret, and trace

Readiness gateValidate against the exact profile package. Test authorization, terminology, provenance, and downstream information loss in addition to base-resource syntax.

03

A concrete example

An eSource service requests Patient, Observation, Medication, and Specimen resources from an electronic health record, validates them against a pinned research profile, and preserves identifiers and provenance for study review.

Why it matters: Machine-readable resources accelerate ingestion, but analytical features still need cohort, temporal, and terminology normalization.

04

What it fits with

Profiles constrain resources; ConceptMap bridges terminologies; implementation guides connect FHIR to OMOP and CDISC use cases.

05

Implementation starter

Start with one bounded handoff. Pin, test, and review it before scaling.

  1. Define one exchange use case and the receiving system's decision before selecting resources.

  2. Choose a named implementation guide; pin the FHIR release plus package and terminology versions.

  3. Select the required resources, profiles, search parameters, extensions, and terminology bindings.

  4. Validate representative examples with the target profile package and test them against the real server contract.

  5. Test authorization, consent, provenance, error handling, and reconciliation as separate operational requirements.

  6. If the data feeds analytics, measure what is lost or transformed when it enters the analytical model.

06

Test the main limitation

Risk

A payload passes base FHIR validation but fails the named implementation guide or the receiver's contract.

Test

Run profile-specific validation and a round-trip test against the target server using representative extensions, codes, references, and failure cases.

Risk

FHIR resources arrive successfully but cannot support the intended cohort, endpoint, or temporal analysis.

Test

Trace one real analytical question from source record through the FHIR exchange into the downstream model, measuring missing codes, time context, provenance, and cardinality changes.

07

Official resources

Specifications, diagrams, examples, and guides from the organizations that maintain them.

  • Primary sourceR5 · 5.0.0

    HL7® FHIR® R5 specification

    The canonical R5 specification and entry point to resources, infrastructure, and implementation guidance.

    Publisher
    HL7
    Open official source
  • DiagramFHIR® R5 · 5.0.0

    Patient resource visual

    The official visual overview of the Patient resource and its most important relationships.

    FHIR Patient resource overview showing patient details and links to related clinical and administrative resources.
    HL7® FHIR® R5 Patient resourcePreview · open the original at the publisher
    Publisher
    HL7
    Open official source
  • SpecificationFHIR® R5 · 5.0.0

    Patient resource specification

    Definitions, scope, boundaries, fields, examples, and maturity details for Patient in R5.

    Publisher
    HL7
    Open official source
  • DownloadsFHIR® R5 · 5.0.0

    R5 downloads and implementation artifacts

    Official definitions, schemas, examples, packages, and publication downloads for implementers.

    Publisher
    HL7
    Open official source

Next action

Put this profile in context

Compare its role with adjacent standards or place it inside an end-to-end data pathway before choosing an implementation.