Get access token for Azure API for FHIR using Azure CLI

Important

Azure API for FHIR will be retired on September 30, 2026. Follow the migration strategies to transition to Azure Health Data Services FHIR service by that date. Due to the retirement of Azure API for FHIR, new deployments won't be allowed beginning April 1, 2025. Azure Health Data Services FHIR service is the evolved version of Azure API for FHIR that enables customers to manage FHIR, DICOM, and MedTech services with integrations into other Azure services.

In this article, you'll learn how to obtain an access token for the Azure API for FHIR using the Azure CLI. When you provision the Azure API for FHIR, you configure a set of users or service principals that have access to the service. If your user object ID is in the list of allowed object IDs, you can access the service using a token obtained using the Azure CLI.

Prerequisites

• Use the Bash environment in Azure Cloud Shell. For more information, see Quickstart for Bash in Azure Cloud Shell.

  

• If you prefer to run CLI reference commands locally, install the Azure CLI. If you're running on Windows or macOS, consider running Azure CLI in a Docker container. For more information, see How to run the Azure CLI in a Docker container.

  • If you're using a local installation, sign in to the Azure CLI by using the az login command. To finish the authentication process, follow the steps displayed in your terminal. For other sign-in options, see Sign in with the Azure CLI.

  • When you're prompted, install the Azure CLI extension on first use. For more information about extensions, see Use extensions with the Azure CLI.

  • Run az version to find the version and dependent libraries that are installed. To upgrade to the latest version, run az upgrade.

Obtain a token

The Azure API for FHIR uses a resource or Audience with URI equal to the URI of the FHIR server https://<FHIR ACCOUNT NAME>.azurehealthcareapis.com. You can obtain a token and store it in a variable (named $token) with the following command:

$token=$(az account get-access-token --resource=https://<FHIR ACCOUNT NAME>.azurehealthcareapis.com --query accessToken --output tsv)

Use with Azure API for FHIR

curl -X GET --header "Authorization: Bearer $token" https://<FHIR ACCOUNT NAME>.azurehealthcareapis.com/Patient

Next steps

In this article, you've learned how to obtain an access token for the Azure API for FHIR using the Azure CLI. To learn how to access the FHIR API using Postman, proceed to the Postman tutorial.

Access the FHIR service using Postman

FHIR® is a registered trademark of HL7 and is used with the permission of HL7.