Introduction to MCP Server Enabling LLM Queries on FHIR Data

Details

This article introduces the technical details of CData's Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for FHIR. The server is designed to allow LLMs (such as Claude Desktop) to query FHIR data through a simple MCP interface. Accessing the data requires an external CData JDBC driver for FHIR, which necessitates downloading, licensing, and configuring the connection using a `.prp` file. This mechanism allows LLMs to treat FHIR data—exposed by the JDBC driver as relational SQL models—and retrieve live information simply by asking natural language questions. Developers must clone the repository from GitHub and build the server using Maven. This technology significantly improves data access in healthcare, enabling users without specialized knowledge to easily interact with structured healthcare data. (The text also provides detailed setup instructions, including licensing the JDBC driver and configuring the connection string.)