Set up FHIRlink connector (preview)

Article
12/21/2023

Important

This is a preview feature.
Preview features aren't meant for production use and may have restricted functionality. These features are available before an official release so that customers can get early access and provide feedback.

The healthcare industry is rapidly moving to adopt the emerging HL7 FHIR® standard. FHIR defines an extensible data model with standardized semantics and data exchange that enables interoperability and rapid exchange of data in applications. FHIRlink connector (preview) is a first-party Power Platform FHIR connector that enables Power App developers to build low-code, no-code applications that interact directly with FHIR data. The connector supports multiple authentication methods for enhanced security. It reduces the complexity in FHIR service authentication, query construction, and working with FHIR based data, removing the need for custom single-use integration solutions.

The feature includes the following key benefits:

Offers a custom connector designed for use with Power Platform canvas apps, Power Automate flows, and Azure Logic Apps.
Enables direct access to FHIR services from Power Platform and Azure.
Supports authentication for Azure Health Data Services and Google FHIR services.
Reduces the complexity of working with FHIR service APIs and the resulting FHIR data.

This article provides instructions for accessing FHIRlink connector (preview) and setting up your connections. The connector is deployed as a public preview feature to the Power Platform connector platform and is available for testing. To learn more about the available connectors, see Connector reference overview.

Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following prerequisites in place:

Active Power Apps license.
Active Power Automate Premium license.
Active FHIR server installation with sample data, such as Azure Health Data Services.
Permissions to create and update data on your FHIR service.

Create a connection

The connector supports the following two authentication methods:

Use default Azure shared application
Bring your own Google application

After you create the connection, you can use it in one or more of your applications.

Use default Azure shared application

This option can be used when you connect to the Azure Health Data Services Azure API for FHIR. The authentication method needs the following two values:

Azure FHIR Service Endpoint URL: The endpoint URL of the Azure FHIR service. For example, https://{{fhirservicename}}.fhir.azurehealthcareapis.com
Azure FHIR Services Resource URI: The identifier used in Microsoft Entra ID to identify the target FHIR service resource. For Azure FHIR services, the URI typically follows the format https://{{fhirservicename}}.fhir.azurehealthcareapis.com

Bring your own Google application

This option can be used when connecting to Google Cloud Healthcare API. The authentication needs the following three values:

Google FHIR Service Endpoint URL: The endpoint URL of the Google FHIR service. For example, https://healthcare.googleapis.com/{{fhirservicepath}}/fhir
Client ID: The client ID or the application ID of your Google application.
Client Secret: The client secret of your Google application.

For more information on setting up OAuth in Google Healthcare Cloud, see Create an OAuth Client Application in Google.

Connector operations

To learn more about the connector reference and how to use it, see FHIRlink connector (preview). For a list of supported operations, go to FHIRlink connector actions.

Samples

The FHIRlink connector (preview) release provides samples for how to use the connector within a simple Power Platform canvas app. These examples explained step-by-step are intended to build on each previous sample. However, you can also use them individually as needed.

Each sample provides a downloadable completed solution. To review the samples, go to:

Assumptions for sample usage

The samples provided assume completion of the following steps:

Review the Overview and Prerequisites sections to set up the correct configuration.
Ensure that all the requisite Power Platform licenses are available as needed.
Deploy an environment that includes all the required licenses.
Create a connection using the guidance in Create a connection.