My favorite way to describe the issues with FHIR is semantic vs syntactical interoperability. Using FHIR means syntactically interoperability. Same structure,

My favorite way to describe the issues with FHIR is semantic vs syntactical interoperability. Using FHIR means syntactically interoperability. Same structure, uses json, things generally in the same place. Semantic interoperability means that the 2 systems can understand each other… just using FHIR is NOT enough for this. Different value sets and ways of representing the same information mean that 2 systems view of the same data may be very different. I liken this to when I walked into a bar in a small town in Northern Ireland. I was speaking English, the bartender was speaking English, but we could not understand each other. We eventually figured things out but it was TOUGH to communicate even though we were ostensibly speaking the same language. This is what FHIR apis from 2 different vendors are like. Same “language” remarkably different dialects