Healthcare has talked about connected care and interoperability for decades. In 2026, however, interoperability is no longer a vision statement. It is the technical foundation required to power AI-driven healthcare applications, clinical trials, healthcare data platforms and modern digital health products.
In the first episode of our Interoperability Masterclass series, Star Interoperability Solutions Architect and HL7 co‑chair Yanick Gaudet explains why FHIR interoperability has become so urgent and what medical device manufacturers, healthtech companies and pharmaceutical organizations need to do now to prepare their platforms for the next generation of healthcare innovation.
Key highlights from this episode:
- Interoperability is the foundation of AI in healthcare
- Artificial intelligence depends on large, structured and accessible data sets. Yet many healthcare organizations still operate on fragmented systems where clinical data is siloed across electronic health records, devices, research systems and operational tools.
- Standards such as HL7v2 and FHIR provide a common language for healthcare systems, allowing organizations to build interoperable healthcare platform that enable advanced analytics, predictive models and intelligent clinical decision support.
- Interoperability drives the next generation of digital health products
- Healthcare organizations are increasingly developing digital health products that combine patient data, clinical insights and real-time monitoring, including patient engagement solutions, clinical research platforms, and connected medical devices. These innovations depend on robust FHIR interoperability frameworks to ensure secure and reliable data exchange across the healthcare ecosystem. For healthtech innovators, interoperability is no longer just a compliance requirement but a critical capability that determines how quickly new digital products can be built, integrated and brought to market.
FHIR vs HL7 v2
Yanick explains that HL7 v2 is the long‑standing “workhorse” standard for clinical data exchange – widely deployed and stable, but relatively loose and heavily customized from site to site. By contrast, FHIR is a modern, API‑driven standard built around well‑defined resources (like Patient or Observation) and profiles that strictly constrain how data elements such as vital signs and lab results are structured and coded. This stricter, profile‑based approach means FHIR enables more consistent, predictable data exchange with less bespoke mapping effort, making it better suited to today’s ecosystem of cloud services, mobile apps and AI‑driven analytics.
Connect with us
At Star, we help medical device manufacturers, healthtech companies, and pharma teams turn interoperability into a real competitive advantage. We design and build compliant, FHIR‑native, cloud‑enabled solutions that connect devices, data platforms, and EHRs while embedding data governance, regulatory readiness, and user‑centric experience design. If you’re ready to modernize HL7 v2 integrations, adopt FHIR, and launch AI‑ready digital health products, get in touch with us to explore how we can partner on your interoperability roadmap.
