A Consensus-Based Approach for Harmonizing the OHDSI Common Data Model with HL7 FHIR

A variety of data models have been developed to provide a standardized data interface that supports organizing clinical research data into a standard structure for building the integrated data repositories. HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) is emerging as a next generation standards framework for facilitating health care and electronic health records-based data exchange. The objective of the study was to design and assess a consensus-based approach for harmonizing the OHDSI CDM with HL7 FHIR. We leverage a FHIR W5 (Who, What, When, Where, and Why) Classification System for designing the harmonization approaches and assess their utility in achieving the consensus among curators using a standard inter-rater agreement measure. Moderate agreement was achieved for the model-level harmonization (kappa=0.50) whereas only fair agreement was achieved for the property-level harmonization (kappa=0.21). FHIR W5 is a useful tool in designing the harmonization approaches between data models and FHIR, and facilitating the consensus achievement.