In Tanzania, United Republic of, FHIR is being used for a small number of healthcare data exchange use cases. It is not yet the main standard, but interest and activity are growing.

The main FHIR version in use is R4. Some early use of R4B, R5, and the pre-release R6 is also happening.

Looking ahead, Tanzania expects a strong increase in FHIR adoption in the coming years.

Rules and Support

Tanzania does not yet have regulations that require the use of standards for electronic health data exchange. However, important strategic documents already point to FHIR as a key standard for the health sector.

  • No formal regulation mandating standards for health data exchange yet
  • No government funding specifically available to support FHIR adoption
  • FHIR is mentioned in the Tanzania Digital Transformation Strategy 2025/2030 and the Tanzania Health Enterprise Architecture Blueprint as a key standard to adopt
  • A Personal Data Protection Act is in place, but gaps remain in the wider data governance framework

National Setup

The national infrastructure for FHIR standards in Tanzania is still developing.

  • No national organization is currently responsible for health data standards
  • No national base FHIR implementation guide is in place yet (an implementation guide explains how to apply FHIR consistently across systems)
  • A national FHIR terminology server is in planning (this is a service that manages standard medical codes and terms)
  • There is no known activity yet around the FHIR Community Process, and this is expected to remain the case for the next 2–3 years

Active Use Cases

A few FHIR standards are being developed in Tanzania for specific areas:

  • Immunizations
  • Based on the International Patient Summary (an international standard for sharing a basic patient health record across borders)

Who's Using FHIR

The main groups adopting FHIR in Tanzania include:

  • EHR (electronic health record) system vendors
  • Diagnostic system vendors, such as imaging and laboratory systems
  • App developers
  • Government agencies

The main reasons they are adopting FHIR are:

  • Improving health outcomes
  • Improving care workflows
  • Giving patients access to their data
  • Supporting innovation

In terms of how FHIR is being used, the FHIR REST API (a way for systems to exchange data over the web) is the most widely applied exchange mechanism. SMART on FHIR (a standard for building secure healthcare apps) is also being used. FHIR Messaging, CQL on FHIR, SQL on FHIR, and Bulk Data are applied to a moderate extent. FHIR Documents, CDS Hooks, Subscriptions, Questionnaires, and FHIR Shorthand are not yet in use.

Most FHIR software in use is open source.

Success Stories and Challenges

FHIR is already showing real benefits in Tanzania.

Successes:

  • Improved access to information
  • Improved care workflows
  • Use of FHIR in EMR (electronic medical record) standardization
  • Implementation of the national Health Information Exchange (HIE)

Main challenges:

  • High investment cost
  • Unclear benefits for some stakeholders
  • Unclear regulations
  • Lack of FHIR knowledge and expertise
  • Limited technical capacity and financial resources

Looking forward: Tanzania is preparing to adopt the WHO SMART Guidelines using FHIR (these are digital guidelines from the World Health Organization that translate health recommendations into software).

Future Plans

Progress over the past year has been much less than expected, and satisfaction with the current adoption rate is low. Still, the country shows strong political commitment to move forward.

A key achievement in the past year was the development of new FHIR standards for specific use cases.

Expected next steps in the coming year include:

  • Developing a national FHIR data model
  • Introducing new regulations that require standards in electronic health data exchange
  • Developing more FHIR standards for specific use cases
  • Expanding FHIR adoption across the healthcare system

There is broad agreement that within the next three years, Tanzania will start to see real benefits from FHIR, including better care coordination and a stronger digital health ecosystem.

Contributors

The contributor chose to remain anonymous.

The above summary is based on the answers to the State of FHIR Survey 2026, organized by Firely and HL7 International.