New Zealand Rheumatic Fever FHIR Implementation Guide - Local Development build (v0.5.0) built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) Build Tools. See the Directory of published versions

Developer Guide

Authentication / Authorization

This FHIR API uses standard OAUTH bearer token authentication.

All requests to this FHIR API must include an access token in the Authorization header.

​Authorized clients can obtain access tokens from the Health New Zealand authorization server (KeyCloak) requesting the applicable rheumatic fever OAUTH scopes and audiences.

See the accompanying Postman collection for example OAUTH token request.

Request context

All FHIR API requests must include metadata about the context of usage for the application consuming the API. This is done by setting properties in the Request-Context custom header (which is a string containing a Base64-encoded JSON object).

The schema for defining and validating these properties can be found here

An example request context follows illustrating FHIR API access on behalf of the Northland / Te Tai Tokerau RF Secondary Prevention Service:

{
  "userIdentifier": "11AAbb@#",
  "purposeOfUse": "POPHLTH",
  "userFullName": "Rosie (Rheumatic Fever Coordinator)",
  "hpiOrganisation": {
    "type": "Organization",
    "identifier": {
      "use": "official",
      "system": "https://standards.digital.health.nz/ns/hpi-organisation-id",
      "value": "G0M086-B"
    },
    "display": "Te Tai Tokerau Rheumatic Fever Secondary Prevention Service"
  }
}

A schema for the Request-Context is available here

FHIR resource profile-based validation

HNZ's FHIR server validates all instance payloads on FHIR resource creation/update requests.

Developers should ensure all FHIR resource instances being created or updated set the correct profile in their meta.profile property, so that payloads can be properly validated against the IG profles/definitions by the server.

Example:

"meta" : {
  "profile" : ["https://fhir-ig.digital.health.nz/rheumatic-fever/StructureDefinition/nz-rheumaticfever-condition"]
}

Profile Versioning behaviour

A resource payload MAY claim a specific version of a resource profile if that instance representation relies on version-specific profile features.

1. When a resource payload claims a non-versioned profile url, this server validates using the latest profile version in its server configuration.
2. When a resource payload contains no profile url claim, this server validates using the standard HL7 FHIR R4 profile.
3. If a resource payload claims a non-existent profile version url, this server will reject the operation with a 400 Bad Request and message "Profile reference '' has not been checked because it is unknown"

Resource retrieval by profile

Once resources are created, API consumers can retrieve by profile, and if desired, profile version.

Example:

Retrieve all condition resources using version 1.0.0:

GET /Condition?_profile=https://fhir-ig.digital.health.nz/rheumatic-fever/StructureDefinition/nz-rheumaticfever-condition|1.0.0

Without the version qualifier, the FHIR search would return all profiled condition resources regardless of the profile version

FHIR Resource references

FHIR Resource References are commonplace and necessary to represent real health information over a range of FHIR resource types.

Types of FHIR references

The following examples of FHIR references are acceptable in POST/PUT payloads sent by consumers of the Te Whatu Ora Shared Care API.

Relative literal RESTful references

"reference": "Patient/"e5d44ac6-cc79-4e80-bea4-225e5a93a8b7"

This API DOES NOT resolve the reference (test if the instance exists) or check that the resource type is actually supported by the API. API consumers are expected to ensure that the referenced RESTful resource path is correct when POST/PUTing a payload.

Absolute Url references

"reference": "https://fhir.example.org/base/Patient/123"

This API DOES NOT resolve absolute Urls (that is, it does not check that the referenced instance exists or is reachable). API consumers are expected to ensure that all such references are correct when POST/PUTing payloads.

References by logical external identifier

 "author" : {
    "type" : "Organization",
    "identifier" : {
      "use" : "official",
      "system" : "https://standards.digital.health.nz/ns/hpi-organisation-id",
      "value" : "G0M086-B"
    },
    "display" : "Te Tai Tokerau Rheumatic Fever Secondary Prevention Service"
  },

This API DOES NOT resolve external logical identifier references. API consumers are expected to ensure that all such references are correct when POST/PUTing payloads.

urn:uuid references in Bundles

These are commonly used in Bundles to make links between instances in the same Bundle.

This API does support inter-instance linking in POSTed FHIR Bundles, using urn:uuid style references.

The following excerpt shows valid use of urn:uuids in a POST Bundle which creates an Encounter and a QuestionnaireResponse instance, and lets the API form the reference from the QR to the Encounter.

{
  "resourceType": "Bundle",
  "type": "transaction",
  "entry": [
  {
    "fullUrl": "urn:uuid:Encounter-temporary-id",
    "resource": {
      "resourceType": "Encounter",
      ...
    }
  },
  {
    "fullUrl": "urn:uuid:QR-temporary-id",
    "resource": {
      "resourceType": "QuestionnaireResponse",
      "encounter": {
        "reference": "urn:uuid:Encounter-temporary-id"
      },
      ...
    }
  },
  ...
}

Reference validation in the Te Whatu Ora Shared Care API

The API performs some validation on FHIR resource references. API consumers that send payloads containing the following errors will get 400 Bad Request errors.