Introduction to the Bulk FHIR Coordinator

While a typical HL7® FHIR® interaction seeks specific information about a particular patient, a FHIR bulk dataOpens in a new tab interaction extracts large quantities of data across patients from a FHIR resource server. Typical uses for bulk FHIR include identifying study cohorts, population health, or transferring data from one EHR to another.

In order to simplify the FHIR bulk data interaction for clients and to not overwhelm a FHIR server with bulk data requests, the InterSystems Bulk FHIR Coordinator(BFC) mediates the interaction between a bulk data client and a FHIR resource server endpoint for bulk data requests. The Bulk FHIR Coordinator can facilitate bulk FHIR export for FHIR resource servers that do not natively support the bulk data interaction.

When the Bulk FHIR Coordinator requests and receives FHIR resources from a FHIR endpoint on behalf of a client, it is called an export.

The diagram below illustrates how the Bulk FHIR Coordinator mediates the interaction between a client and FHIR endpoints.

You can interact with the Bulk FHIR Coordinator either by using the BFC home page or through a bulk data REST client:

• On the BFC home page, you can enter a set of configurations. Each bulk FHIR configuration identifies a FHIR resource server endpoint, and defines the authorization type, file location, and other parameters to be used in the bulk data interaction. The FHIR endpoint may be InterSystems IRIS for Health, HealthShare Health Connect, HealthShare Unified Care Record, or any other system that supports returning all resources and, for patient and group exports, supports the Patient/$everything operation.

  From the home page you can also initiate exports, view export status, download exported files, and view the export logs.

• Using a REST client you can perform each of the requests described in the FHIR Bulk Data Export specificationOpens in a new tab. Each bulk FHIR configuration provides two endpoints:

  • bulk FHIR endpoint — supports export, status, and delete requests

  • file storage endpoint — supports file download requests