Open Standards Community for Healthcare Innovation
Smile Digital Health is actively engaged in FHIR® communities globally, driving health-tech towards true interoperability, ubiquitous data and intelligent analytics.
Community Contributions
Participate with Smile and Contribute to the Community
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Lead open standards adoption (FHIR and CQL)
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Explore and test real-world situations
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Lead Technical, Community and Implementation Guide (IG) Working Groups
Commitment and Contributions to Open Standards
Open-standards lives in our DNA
Smile Digital Health maintains the open-source HAPI FHIR® and CQF FHIR projects. We are passionate about contributing and evolving open-standards in healthcare. Over 20 developers and leaders at Smile regularly contribute to the groups listed here across HL7®, Da Vinci, CQL, FHIR, IPS (International Patient Summary), SMART on FHIR, FAST, C-CDA, CARIN (Blue Button®) and FHIRBall.
Open-standards is a part of our DNA . We fundamentally believe that this is the path towards #BetterGlobalHealth and will continue to contribute and participate in the community. The team also supports Clinical Community Guidelines, including building, as well as dissemination, adoption, integration and implementation in accordance with international guidelines across the globe.
Active Sandboxes, Connect-a-thons and Plug n’Plays
Exploring CDS Hooks from a User’s and a Developer’s Perspective
The CDS (Clinical Decision Support) Hooks Sandbox offers hands-on experience, simulating a clinician’s interaction within an EHR system. It also provides access to the underlying JSON, showcasing CDS Hooks invocations and service response cards in real time.
Originally developed by the CDS Hooks standards community in 2018 and 2019, the Sandbox is currently being modernized through the Implementation of Electronic Clinical Decision Support Services project. This CDC-sponsored and ASTP-CDC led project ensures the Sandbox remains cutting-edge, with key contributors including ASTP, CDC, Security Risk Solutions Inc., and Smile Digital Health.
Discover the ASTP Confluence page for the CDS Hooks Sandbox and try it yourself! Also the CDS Hooks Github, and the deployed sandbox.
Smile Digital Health — Presenting Sponsor of FHIR North 2026
Smile Digital Health is proud to serve as the Presenting Sponsor of FHIR North 2026, Canada's premier conference dedicated to Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (HL7® FHIR®). Taking place virtually on October 27–28, 2026, FHIR North brings together developers, clinicians, policymakers, researchers, and health-tech innovators from across the country to explore how FHIR standards are transforming healthcare data exchange.
Smile Featured Sessions at FHIR North
Building the Trust Layer for FHIR at Scale: Security, Consent, and Directory Infrastructure for Canadian Health Exchange
Track: Code Camp
Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Time: 1:00PM-1:45PM
Speakers:
- Duncan Weatherston, CEO, Smile Digital Health
- David Pyke, FAST Technical Director, HL7 FAST FHIR at Scale Task Force
Description
Canada’s health interoperability ecosystem is moving from foundational standards toward scalable information exchange across provinces, territories, healthcare organizations, vendors, clinicians, and patients. While FHIR APIs are essential, standards alone do not establish the trust required for data to move securely across jurisdictional boundaries.
Attendees will gain practical guidance for moving beyond isolated FHIR endpoints toward secure, patient-centred, scalable interoperability in which identity, authorization, consent, directory discovery, and organizational trust operate as shared infrastructure.
Configuring Master Data Management in HAPI‑FHIR
Track: Code Camp
Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Time: 2:15PM-3:00PM
Speakers:
- Jason Roberts, Staff Developer, Smile Digital Health
Description
Duplicate records have a way of infiltrating any healthcare system, due to inconsistent data sources, process gaps, or human error. One important technique for improving data quality in a clinical data repository is the identification and elimination of these duplicate records. HAPI FHIR provides a powerful and flexible Master Data Management (MDM) module for detecting and reconciling duplicate resources in the repository.
This session will show you how to get the most out of your MDM configuration. We will discuss candidate pool selection, deterministic and probabilistic match rules, enterprise identifier matching, performance considerations, and more.
Intro to Resource Validation with the
HL7 FHIR Validator
Track: Code Camp
Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Time: 11:45AM-12:30PM
Speakers:
- David Otasek, Senior Software Developer, Smile Digital Health
Description
This session offers an introduction to the HL7 FHIR Validator and its derived tools, which are used to check whether FHIR resources conform to FHIR specifications. Throughout the session, we will walk through the available HL7 software for FHIR resource validation, including both the command-line interface (CLI) tool and the online validator.
This session will also cover the basics of FHIR specification conformance, explain how to obtain and run the validation software, and discuss how to interpret validation results in order to evaluate FHIR conformance. Finally, we will explore other important functionality available through the CLI tool.
“If FHIR is so easy, why is it so hard?"
with FHIR North Committee Members
Track: Live Q/A and Panel Discussion
Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2026
Time: 12:45PM-1:30PM
Speakers:
- James Agnew, CTO, Smile Digital Health
- Russ Buchanan, Director, Architecture & Standards, Amplify Care
- Joanie Harper, Program Specialist, Primary Health Care Data Standards Development, CIHI
- Lloyd McKenzie, Chief Standards Officer, Dogwood Health Consulting
- Gavin Tong, Canadian Health Industry Data & AI Lead, Accenture
Description
FHIR promises seamless interoperability, modern APIs, and rapid integration, so why do real-world implementations still hit significant friction?
Join us for a candid, expert-led discussion exploring the gap between standard specification and implementation reality. Our panel brings together perspectives from across the ecosystem to dissect the unexpected hurdles, organizational friction, and technical complexities of deploying FHIR at scale, and how teams can successfully navigate them..
FHIRBall
Smile Digital Health is a founding member of FHIRBall, a global partnership established to accelerate the adoption of FHIR. FHIRBall promotes open data standards, reduces vendor lock-in, and drives commercial adoption of FHIR-based tools in healthcare.
FHIR Business Alliance (FHIRBall) Use Cases
Insights about interoperability, FHIR, and FHIRBall from Duncan Weatherston, Smile’s CEO, and Mario Hyland from AEGIS.
Join Smile at HL7 FHIR Dev Days 2026
June 15 - 18, 2026 - Minneapolis, MN
Happy Anniversary! Celebrate 10 years of our FHIR®-native Health Data Platform!
Built on a decade of interoperability, we are now leading the transformation into intelligent
health data so that it is accessible at the moment of care.
Upcoming Events
Where to Connect with Smile
HL7 WGM and Connectathon
Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A
Date: September 13-19
Smile Experts will be leading the Clinical Reasoning track at the upcoming HL7 FHIR® Connectathon. Join us to test FHIR-based Quality Measures in use-cases like care gaps management, CMS, CDS and more.
Beyond software, Smile offers FHIR and CQL Training Courses for real‑world implementation teams.
FHIR Essentials Program
Foundational Competency in FHIR Architecture and Implementation.
CQL Essentials Program
Applied Computable Logic for Quality
and Decision Support.
Why This Matters To Your Organization
Healthcare can no longer rely on patchwork upgrades or incremental fixes. The modernization process requires a vendor-partner who can align people, processes, and technologies to deliver measurable and sustainable impact.
Smile’s express don’t just implement software solutions for compliance and FHIR-transformation. Our team simplifies and optimizes complex and fragmented processes, helping organizations shift from patchwork solutions to unified, high-value data management.
Successful digital transformation requires experts who understand both technology (standards like FHIR and CQL), and the essential human component, including collaborative integrations and workflow alignment within the organization and with external systems.
When functions, teams, and data operate in isolation, even the most powerful systems cannot deliver measurable value. Our experts help organizations reduce operational risk, clarify pathways to modernization, and implement scalable solutions with precision.