Making a Fhir server using C# and SQL Server ( RDBMS )

1
votes

I am excited with Fhir's promises. I started getting my head around on this subject for last couple of days.

We have an existing SQL Server database containing health related records. We are trying to communicate with Fhir compliant messages.

  1. Sending data : Based on the given specification in http://hl7.org/fhir/, and using data object model of https://www.nuget.org/packages/Hl7.Fhir.DSTU2 , I can transform my relational data to Hl7.Fhir.Model data. Then , its a matter of transforming that data to either JSON / XML.

  2. Consuming data : We can have the incoming data mapped to Hl7.Fhir.Model. But , I find it difficult to map extensions ( i.e. not a direct property) with our columns. Is there any way I can do this easily?

  3. Is SQL Server not a good choice to build a Fhir server ? Do I have to consider using MongoDB / DocumentDB ?

1
dstu2-fhirhl7-fhir

1 Answers

1
votes

you can add tables to support extensions directly, if you want. of course, you would not know the extensions internally and make use of the content in them. But it would be just like using mongo etc.

But you do not have to round-trip extensions. Many many FHIR implementations are exactly what you say: a FHIR facade over an existing schema, usually a relational database. They support specific extensions that they've decided to support, by building them into their schema (or they already existed)