Hello,
I’m interested to find out whether there are published FHIR profiles for the FHIR APIs? I.e. do the FHIR payloads conform to any existing published FHIR Profile, or have new ones been published specifically for the APIs, or do they not exist.
Thanks,
Paul
Hi Paul,
This largely depends on the version of FHIR being used. STU3 APIs are generally based on the CareConnect specification, the profiles within this spec are hosted on the HL7 UK FHIR Reference Server.
For R4 APIs, these will most likely be based on the FHIR UK Core if covering the 4 nations, or the NHS England FHIR Implementation Guide if the scope is England. The links above include the FHIR profiles created for use in the UK/England. Most APIs on the API catalogue will also have a link to a domain specific Implementation Guide, which includes guidance on how to use FHIR resources within a specific domain/API.
Hope that helps,
Omar
Hi Omar,
Thanks, that is helpful and I can see the links, e.g. in the PDS FHIR API to the published profiles. What I’m really asking though is whether the APIs precisely conform to those published profiles such that automated tooling could make use of those profiles? Does your development process keep published resource profiles and the OAS specs in lock-step? At least as far as atomic resource definitions are concerned, not necessarily compositions into bundles etc.
Thanks very much for your help.
Paul
Hi Paul,
At the risk of making a blanket statement, we expect that where an Implementation Guide is linked from an OAS, the API will be kept conformant with that version of the Implementation Guide. This has been the case for the programmes I’ve worked on, such as EPS (which validates resources against the profiles in the associated IG).
However, I believe it is worth contacting the API Management team for the specific API you are looking at just to confirm this is the case.
Best,
Omar
Hi Omar,
Thanks for your guidance.
Kind regards,
Paul