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FHIRcast

What is FHIRcast?​

FHIRcast is a standard developed to provide real-time synchronization and context sharing between healthcare applications. It builds on the foundations of FHIR resources, but focuses specifically on ensuring that multiple applications remain synchronized in real-time as users interact with them.

FHIRcast requires a centralized system to manage real-time synchronization and context sharing. This system is referred to as a “FHIRcast hub”.

Here’s how FHIRcast works:

  1. Subscription setup: Applications subscribe to a FHIRcast hub for specific events. This is typically done during application startup.
  2. Event triggering: When a user interacts with an application (e.g., opens a patient record or an imaging study), the application sends an event to the FHIRcast hub.
  3. Real-time notification: The FHIRcast hub immediately broadcasts this event to all subscribed applications via WebSockets, ensuring they are notified in real-time.
  4. Context synchronization: Subscribed applications receive the event notification and adjust their context accordingly. For example, if an imaging study is opened in one application, other applications might display related patient information or open the same study.

Example - Imaging Study Synchronization​

  1. A radiologist opens an imaging study in their PACS.
  2. The PACS sends an event to the FHIRcast hub, indicating that the ImagingStudy FHIR resource has been opened.
  3. The FHIRcast hub broadcasts this event to all subscribed applications, including the Rad AI Reporting application.
  4. The Rad AI Reporting application receives the notification and automatically opens the same ImagingStudy, ready for the radiologist to dictate their findings into a new report.