Azure FHIR - How do I connect to my Azure SQL DB to FHIR API

Question

Our project is using Azure SQL DB for maintaining patient and claims data. We are planning to use Azure FHIR services for providing the data in FHIR format to external users. I have few queries here:

1. As the current data is in relational data model, does Azure server or API provides a way for me to map the data to the Azure FHIR DB? How do I do a data mapping from my SQL DB to FHIR DB?
2. Should we take care of converting data from relational model to FHIR format?
3. What is SQL persistance provider? How do I use it?

Answer 1

Hi @Srilaxmi Koosam - It is great to see interest in the Azure FHIR solution. As a customer, you have ownership of data conversion (ETL) process. We do have some tools and resources available to you which I will share here. As for the topic of persistence, this is functionality built-in to the FHIR service that allows for either Azure Cosmos DB or SQL Database be used as the datastore platform while still offering data persistence provider for a distributed transaction architecture. Please see: Microsoft FHIR Server for Azure extends to SQL

FHIR Converter - The FHIR Converter transforms HL7 v2 messages and CDA documents into FHIR bundles using templates that define the mappings between the two data formats. Leveraging the FHIR Converter, organizations can customize or create their own mapping templates based on their HL7 v2 or C-CDA implementation and transform them into FHIR bundles.

Partner ecosystem for Azure API for FHIR - When creating an end-to-end solution built around Azure API for FHIR, you may require the help of a partner for their unique IP or for help stitching everything together. We are hard at work growing this ecosystem of diverse partners and I'd like to introduce you to a few of them.

Azure FHIR Supported Features - Azure API for FHIR provides a fully managed deployment of the Microsoft FHIR Server for Azure. The server is an implementation of the FHIR standard. This document lists the main features of the FHIR Server.

Additional Information: Health Architectures - Health Architectures is a collection of reference architectures and, when appropriate, implementations. They illustrate end-to-end best practices for using the Azure API for FHIR and related technologies. Below is the holistic conceptual end to end architecture for Azure API for FHIR.

Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Regards,
Mike