Taiwan Achieves Cross-Hospital EHR Interoperability with FHIR: A New Era Beyond Data Silos

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Taiwan has historically struggled with over forty separate EHR systems, leading to significant interoperability challenges. To address this, the Ministry of Health and Welfare adopted FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) as its core technology. At the 'Cross-Hospital FHIR Data Platform' presentation, three participating hospitals—Zhongshan, Chang Gung, and Mackay—demonstrated a real-time extraction and exchange of past medical records and medication histories for a simulated chest pain patient from their disparate systems. Officials emphasized that this achievement means raw data can be successfully converted into the international standard FHIR format, greatly enhancing efficiency and feasibility in EHR exchange. Technologically, this approach avoids the prohibitive cost (exceeding NT$1.2 trillion) of replacing all existing systems. By using FHIR as a common language, it connects diverse, existing systems into a single ecosystem—likened to the World Wide Web. This initiative is highlighted as a groundbreaking effort for Taiwan, demonstrating how they can build a global data linkage foundation while maintaining technological autonomy.