Overview of Data Integration Toolkit

Article
03/08/2023
6 minutes to read

Note

Sync admin for FHIR has now been rebranded as Data Integration Toolkit.
Effective October 2022, Azure FHIR Sync Agent is deprecated, and will not be included in the Data Integration Toolkit. Existing users can continue to use it, as per usual, and it will be fully supported until it's retirement in October 2023.

The Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards framework lets healthcare providers share electronic health records (EHR) and electronic medical records (EMR) on a range of devices, from computers to tablets to cell phones. This sharing requires patients' consent. The FHIR framework is intricate and covers highly sensitive data. Integrating this data across this digital ecosystem requires careful data mapping. The FHIR framework makes it feasible by defining a common standard for exchanging patient data in a secure and compliant manner.

Tip

The FHIR framework exists to support interoperability. Mostly, it does that by defining common data objects, to support mapping data between systems that use the FHIR framework.

If you're familiar with database or spreadsheet tables and columns, think of FHIR resources mapped to Dataverse entities as tables and FHIR elements mapped to Dataverse attributes as columns. An entity map is a way to equate a specific FHIR resource with a specific Dataverse entity, and an attribute map does the same thing for FHIR elements and Dataverse attributes.

With the release of the Dataverse Healthcare APIs, healthcare interoperability specialists and administrators can natively configure and manage data exchange between Azure-based FHIR servers and FHIR-enabled endpoints with Dataverse.

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare includes multiple components that allow interoperability between external FHIR servers and FHIR enabled endpoints. These components include the Dataverse Healthcare APIs and Virtual health data tables.

After the deployment and configuration of these components, protected patient data is directly available in your Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare solution powered by Dynamics 365, while remaining in its original system when at rest.

Section	Contents
Data Integration Toolkit	Summary of the toolkit's parts and use cases, with links to more details and procedures.
Dataverse Healthcare APIs	Summary of the components included, with links to information on setup and configuration.
Virtual health data tables	Summary of the feature and implementation details.
Key points to keep in mind	List of things about FHIR synchronization that have broad relevance to the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare solutions.
Data Integration Toolkit security roles	Security roles for the various users of Data Integration Toolkit.
Manage FHIR data by using Data Integration Toolkit	Tasks with steps for managing maps, logging, validation, and more.
Expansion maps	Summary of how expansion maps work, with some examples and links to more information. Expansion maps let you split a complex JSON attribute into several Dataverse attributes.
Healthcare data	Brief description of how healthcare data serves admins, and a link to more information.
Azure Health Data Services	Brief description of the APIs in-context, with links to more information, including a quickstart deployment guide.

What is Data Integration Toolkit?

Data Integration Toolkit contains the administrative tools and configuration data required for the Dataverse Healthcare APIs and Virtual health data tables services to enable secure synchronization of patient health information between EHR systems, FHIR servers and Dataverse. It includes ready-to-use and customizable entity maps, attribute maps, and management tools, enabling healthcare admins to control and shape the data flowing between FHIR servers and Dataverse.

Data Integration Toolkit simplifies data admin duties in three key ways:

Ready-made entity maps and attribute maps for FHIR data used by features in Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare solutions: Using a familiar interface, admins can use this Dataverse model-drive application to enable, disable, archive, and modify these maps to fit current EHR systems. This framework is extensible and configurable, so you can tailor the maps to fit your exact FHIR data needs.
Integration settings: Data Integration Toolkit provides component specific admin setting tools that allow admins to manage each component independently and only enable the tools and components required for their deployments. For more information, go to Integration settings for Dataverse Healthcare APIs and Integration settings for virtual health data tables.
Transaction logs: Data Integration Toolkit lets you view, sort, and search these logs, so admins can validate the data maps and spot issues affecting EMR data. This logging feature can be disabled to avoid clutter in the system, or enabled to display a varying degree of detail during deployment or troubleshooting.

Data Integration Toolkit is deployed automatically when you deploy any of the Dynamics 365 healthcare solutions through the Microsoft Cloud Solution Center.

Key points to keep in mind

Only some FHIR data is synchronized between Azure Health Data Services and Dataverse. An entity map (for example, FHIR Patient ↔ Dataverse Contact) might have unique attributes in either entity. Values of unmapped attributes aren't synchronized.
A Patient resource (Contact in Dataverse) only goes in Dataverse after the patient gives consent. Data changes for patients who haven't consented aren't synchronized.
Data Integration Toolkit assumes that patient data originates from an external system of source, such as Azure Health Data Services. But, this doesn't prevent you from creating patients in Dataverse directly (for example, in Patient access). After a user or patient activates the account by consenting, the user, clinicians, and administrators can create new entity records in Dataverse. For example, new appointments could be created.
With cloud services, data exchanges occur quickly, though not in real time. Data synchronization is triggered by an event or a message, and intermediate services may hold the event data for a short time before they're processed.
You can turn off or turn on which elements to sync. By default, entity map records aren't enabled for synchronization. The baseline maps deployment assumes that data will only be synced between Dataverse and the FHIR server if and as needed. For example, you may only need to synchronize Patient (Contact) data, but not medications or allergies. If you turn off sync for all but necessary entity maps, you reduce your usage pattern on Dynamics 365 (Dataverse), and entitlements aren't constrained.

Data Integration Toolkit security roles

There are three security roles included with Data Integration Toolkit:

Security role	Who needs this role	What the role enables
Sync admin for FHIR Config Administrator	Healthcare Data Admins	Creating and managing entity and attribute data maps Setting values for Integration settings
Sync admin for FHIR Healthcare User	All Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare users who need to access Data Integration Toolkit features	Using Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare solutions while external integration is enabled
Sync admin for FHIR App Reg User	The Azure application registration assigned to a Dataverse application user account	External service access to Dataverse

A screenshot displaying the security roles.

Important

If you don't give the Dataverse sync administrator the System Administrator role, give the FHIR sync administrator the Sync admin for FHIR Config Administrator role and the Healthcare User role.

Healthcare data

As administrators deploy new integrations and manage existing integrations, they'll need to inspect the results of the inbound data to Dataverse. The Healthcare Data section of the Data Integration Toolkit lets admins view and interact with the EHR data in the systems they administer, so they can understand and troubleshoot the data flows.

For more information and examples, go to Healthcare data.

Azure Health Data Services

Azure Health Data Services boosts the exchange of data through FHIR APIs, backed by a managed Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering in the cloud. These new APIs support more standards than the Azure API for FHIR, including DICOM and IoT. This support brings more kinds of protected health information (PHI) data for your EHR systems in the cloud. The FHIR API and compliant data store let you securely interact with any system that uses FHIR APIs.

For more information, go to What is Azure Health Data Services?

Deploy Azure Health Data Services

To start working with Azure Health Data Services, follow the 5-minute quickstart in Deploy Azure Health Data Services using Azure portal.