Azure FHIR Service continued...

Introduction: This article is a continuation of the series of articles starting with the description of SignalR service which was followed by a discussion on Azure Gateway service, Azure Private Link, and Azure Private Endpoint and the benefit of diverting traffic to the Azure Backbone network. Then we started reviewing a more public internet-facing service such as the Bing API. and the benefits it provided when used together with Azure Cognitive Services. We then discussed infrastructure API such as Provider API, ARM resources, and Azure Pipeline and followed it up with a brief overview of the Azure services support for Kubernetes Control Plane via the OSBA and Azure operator. Then we followed it with an example of Azure integration service for Host Integration Server (HIS). We started discussing the Azure FHIR service next.

Description: 

The Azure Fast Healthcare Interoperability resource or the FHIR service is a managed, standards-based compliant API for clinical health data. It enables anyone working with health data to ingest, manage, and persist protected health information (PHI) in the cloud. 

As with any data access layer, this service provides a flexible data model for the PHI data with standardized semantics and data exchange that enables easy interoperability with other applications. In addition to data access, the FHIR service focuses on all industry compliance requirements for PHI data. 

The data is secured with unparalleled intelligence and customer’s data are isolated by databases providing all controls at the database level. The security features are provided by a layered, in-depth defense and advanced threat-protection system. The service can be used with Digital Imaging Communications in Medicine (DICOM) and Azure Cognitive Services to provide meaningful insights into PHI data. With the Azure IoT connector, the data can be unified in FHIR from diverse data streams such as clinical, imaging, device, and unstructured data

Healthcare ecosystems can be built on this service as the source of truth. With its unparalleled focus on security and audit of PHI data, it becomes invaluable for turn-key production-ready solutions by enabling applications to pursue more business opportunities with AI & ML pipelines for real-world actions.

Data security and privacy guarantees are implied with the number of certifications that Azure has received. Search on FHIR is an understated but big differentiator for PHI data. The search targets the workspace-name and account-name qualified endpoint.  FHIR supports common search parameters as well as resource-specific parameters with a wide range of data types including reference, composite, quantity, and special. Common search parameters include _security, _profile, _query, and _filter. Resource-specific parameters include _content,_id, _profile, _query, _source, and _tag. Both chained search and reverse chained search are supported. A chained search is a search using a parameter on a resource referenced by another resource. For example, finding hits with a patient’s name is a chained search. A reverse chained search is one where resources are retrieved using criteria on other resources that reference them. For example, the medication requests can be searched to find only the ones that include information for a specific patient.