When you ask
A normal FHIR server returns the active medications. The list is true only for that moment.
HAIHQ / ReFHIR
ReFHIR
Reactive FHIR infrastructure for applications and AI agents.
Overview
ReFHIR explores a different programming model for healthcare applications and AI systems. Instead of treating FHIR mainly as a request-response API over healthcare data, it treats FHIR data as live application state.
Applications and AI agents can run FHIR queries and stay subscribed to their results. When underlying resources change, ReFHIR finds which active queries are affected, updates those results, and keeps connected clients aligned with committed state.
The goal is to make real-time healthcare applications and healthcare AI systems simpler to build while staying compatible with the FHIR ecosystem.
The answer does not last
Every product rebuilds the list.
A minute later
A clinician stops one drug and starts another. The list you are holding is wrong. So is any AI system still reading it.
The repair
- Ask for the list
- Wait for a notice
- Ask again
- Rebuild the list
What ReFHIR does
You subscribe to that same question. ReFHIR sends the current medication list and leaves the question open.
- Added
- Changed
- Stopped
- Deleted
When a medication is added, changed, stopped, or deleted, ReFHIR sends the list as it is now.
The application reads that list. It does not rebuild one from change notices.
What an AI system gets
- A health AI system reads a record, reasons about it, and may act. Other systems can change the record while it works.
- ReFHIR can tell the system the answer changed, and pass it the new answer.
- That does not make the system safe. It gives the system the record as it is now, rather than a copy from a minute ago.
What is new
The server holds the answer.
Ask for the list. Wait for a notice. Ask again. Rebuild the list.
FHIR can already send a notice that something in the record changed. The notice does not include the current medication list. Whoever receives it still has to produce the list.
Subscribe to the question. The list stays current.
ReFHIR produces the list. That work has been sitting inside each application. Here it sits in the server.
Open research
ReFHIR is part of HAIHQ. A current patient record is something Health AI has been rebuilding inside each product. The server and the technical report are public.