Brussels, 12 November 2025 – HL7 Europe has published three new HL7 Europe FHIR Implementation Guides designed for supporting the European Health Data Space (EHDS): HL7 Base and Core FHIR IGs (Standard for Trial Use) for FHIR release 4 and 5, and the HL7 Europe Extensions package. The publication followed a balloting and consultation process involving all HL7 European affiliates and many stakeholders over the summer of 2025, with hundreds of expert inputs. The Implementation Guides (IGs) can be found here:
- HL7 Europe Base and Core FHIR IG STU 1.0 (R4) [0.1.0]
https://hl7.eu/fhir/base - HL7 Europe Base and Core FHIR IG STU 1.0 (R5) [0.1.0]
https://hl7.eu/fhir/base-r5 - HL7 Europe Extensions FHIR IG STU 1.1 [0.1.1]
https://hl7.eu/fhir/extensions
The Base and Core FHIR Implementation Guides provide a foundational layer for interoperability across diverse use cases, enabling consistent reuse in national projects, European initiatives, and subsequent HL7 Europe guides. Together with standardised extensions and scoped HL7 Europe Implementation Guides, they form a coherent and reusable framework that supports the European Health Data Space (EHDS), while remaining aligned with international standards such as the International Patient Summary (IPS).
“These new FHIR IGs build on and continue the ongoing collaborative work to align the HL7 FHIR global specifications with the emerging requirements of the European Health Data Space”, says Giorgio Cangioli, HL7 European Technical Lead. “They are aligned with the current iteration of the Xt-EHR common logical model, with a clear roadmap to maintain this alignment as the model evolves. This work forms a core element of the HL7 FHIR IG ecosystem for the EHDS, aiming at supporting the European Commission’s forthcoming Implementing Acts on the European Electronic Health Record Exchange Format, expected in early 2027.”
HL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) is a healthcare data exchange standard created by HL7 International that enables the secure and rapid sharing of electronic health information. An HL7 FHIR Implementation Guides (IG) is a set of rules and constraints for using FHIR resources in a specific use case, and specifies the required FHIR profiles, value sets, and extensions. EU “Base” profiles act as the baseline definitions for commonly used concepts in Europe, while EU “Core” profiles introduce essential constraints that apply across many use cases and are intended to be used in the majority of European FHIR Implementation Guides.
“I am thrilled with the strong engagement of the European expert community in the development and harmonisation of base/core HL7 FHIR IGs, that showcase European requirements in the global digital health ecosystem, largely built on HL7 FHIR”, says Catherine Chronaki, HL7 Europe Secretary General. “We will advance this work in our upcoming Working Group Meeting in Cologne, Germany in December, and hope we can welcome many new participants who bring their views and input to the European digital health interoperability standards community!”
HL7 Europe further supports these efforts by holding working group meetings, webinars and hands-on events, and through the Community of Practice “Hospitals on FHIR” to support consistent implementation across Europe. HL7 Europe will host the next Working Group Meeting in Cologne, 1-5 December 2025. Registration is now open.
About HL7 Europe: HL7 Europe is a not-for-profit Foundation established in Brussels in 2010 with the aim to address European standardisation requirements in digital health serving as the European office of HL7 International. The mission of HL7 Europe is to provide standards that empower global health data interoperability to realise its vision of a world in which everyone can securely access and use the right health data when and where they need it. It works in close cooperation with 22 national HL7 Affiliates across Europe and supports the creation of health information technology standards that are widely and easily used enabling interoperability in healthcare. For more information go to www.hl7europe.org.
