The core FHIR specification describes three items. Which of the following are those items?

• A. A set of resources, frameworks, APIs
• B. A platform specification
• C. A data model, terminology, and services
• D. A collection of clinical guidelines

Answer: (A)

FHIR is built around three interrelated pieces. First, a set of resources: these are modular data models that represent clinical concepts such as Patient, Observation, Condition, and many others. They’re the building blocks you use to model health information in a consistent way across systems.

Second, APIs: the way you access and exchange those resources is standardized through RESTful APIs (with typical CRUD operations, search, and versioned interactions). This gives a uniform way to read, create, update, delete, and query resources across different systems.

Third, a framework: this provides the rules that govern how resources are defined and extended, how conformance is demonstrated, how terminology is bound to value sets, and how profiles, extensions, security, and provenance are handled. The framework ties the data models and the APIs together into a coherent, extensible specification.

So the trio described by the core FHIR specification is a set of resources, frameworks, and APIs. The other options don’t capture this exact three-part structure—one describes a platform, another blends data modeling with terminology in a way that isn’t the official three components, and the last isn’t related to how FHIR organizes or exchanges health information.