Introduction to Profiles

FHIR Profiles are a way to constrain FHIR resources to meet specific organizational or regional requirements. FHIR’s flexibility can sometimes become a liability - having multiple ways to represent the same information leads to interoperability issues.

Why is profiling needed?

• Constraining optional fields in FHIR resources
• Different systems may use FHIR differently for the same data
• Countries, hospitals and institutions can define rules to standardize use of a resource

What is a FHIR Profile?

A FHIR Profile is a StructureDefinition resource that constrains a base FHIR resource. It defines requirements like mandatory fields, cardinalities, value sets and custom extensions. It is hosted on a FHIR server and referencible via a unique URL.

We will also use Forge, a profiling and data modelling tool by Firely to create a profile, upload it to a FHIR server, and then validate against it.