Abstract
In the clinical setting, the focus is on individual patients after they become sick or injured. In contrast, public and population health focus on groups of patients or the public at large. These groups can be as small as a local neighborhood, or as big as an entire country, region, or the world. Instead of diagnosis and treatment of individuals, the goal is prevention of disease, identification of risk or protective factors, or promotion of the health of communities. These missions make them attractive use cases for FHIR and FHIR Bulk Data Access. We will begin this chapter with a discussion of public health in which we will encounter some particularly sophisticated applications of FHIR and then shift to population health.