FHIR vs. C-CDA: What Are These Two Formats and How Do They Compare?
January 26, 2022
Hal Levy
A high-level overview of the two common formats for exchanging medical records.
Your test results, visit notes, and vital signs are all clinical documents. FHIR and C-CDA are the two primary data formats used to electronically share these medical records.
FHIR vs. C-CDA Basics
C-CDA
FHIR
Full Name:
Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture
Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources
Exchanges Full Patient Records:
Yes
Yes
Easy Extraction of Specific Data Points:
No - specialized parsing needed to extract individual data points.
Yes - easy to search and separate every aspect of patient encounters.
Best for Organizations That:
• Require a quick implementation time. • Prefer to receive all individual data files. • Already use a CDA-compatible system.
• Have well-defined use cases. • Know which specific data elements (like medications) they need. • Previously worked with healthcare data (especially JSON-based FHIR).
Comply with Cures Act anti-information blocking, although C-CDA is a less comprehensive solution.
Are developed by Health Level 7 (HL7), the standards development organization dedicated to digital health interoperability.
Evolve by consensus via HL7.
Support structured and unstructured data.
Combine information into standardized document types.
Are open source. ❤️
Example C-CDA Document
Beginning of a C-CDA Summary of Care XML document (using synthetic data, of course).
Example FHIR Resource
Beginning of a FHIR medication resource (with synthetic data).
To sum up, C-CDA is a markup standard that creates large bundles of patient data. FHIR includes additional API elements that allow for unbundling of patient data.
Particle’s tools - including our API, industry-leading record locator 🌎, and stunningly reliable document converter ✨ - add additional functionality to both data formats.
These formats are enabling long-sought interoperability goals, pulling together data from smart devices to labs to hospitals. Explore them both to get the healthcare data you need!
1. Natively SOAP, but Particle supports an easier RESTful API.↩
About the author
Hal Levy
Hal is the Content Marketing Manager at Particle. He's an avid runner and gardener with years of experience writing about healthcare for insurers, clinicians, and digital health startups.
