FHIR Operations: Enabling Advanced Clinical Workflows
FHIR Operations - SanteNet
Summary
FHIR Operations provide functionality beyond basic CRUD actions, supporting complex clinical workflows such as validation, terminology management, and patient identity matching. This facilitates a transition from simple data exchange to safe and high-quality clinical processes.
Details
This article explains 'FHIR Operations,' which go beyond basic RESTful API operations like GET/POST. These operations use a `$` prefix and trigger specific advanced server-side actions. Key examples include: $validate for structural and terminological validation of resources; $everything for retrieving all patient-related data; and $match for duplicate detection and cross-system identity matching. Other functions include $lookup, which retrieves detailed information from code systems (like SNOMED CT or LOINC), and $expand, used to expand ValueSets for clinical forms or diagnosis pickers. These capabilities address real-world clinical challenges—such as pre-submission checks of lab results ($validate) or creating comprehensive patient summaries ($everything). By utilizing FHIR Operations, healthcare systems can improve data quality, enrich patient context, ensure safe terminology usage, and achieve robust interoperability across EHRs and applications, moving beyond simple data exchange to build safer clinical workflows.
Original content copyright by respective publishers