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Synchronization with other FHIR servers

FHIR subscriptions​

If the other FHIR server supports FHIR subscriptions, then you can configure it to send resource updates to Pathling.

The first task is to enable subscription support, which may be disabled by default. This process will vary depending on the FHIR server implementation.

Subscriptions can be enabled within the HAPI FHIR JPA server by setting the hapi.fhir.subscription.resthook_enabled property to true.

To create a subscription, you can send a POST request to the /fhir/Subscription endpoint on the source server. The following example shows how to instruct the server to send all updates regarding the Questionnaire resource.

{
    "resourceType": "Subscription",
    "channel": {
        "type": "rest-hook",
        "endpoint": "https://[your Pathling server]/fhir",
        "payload": "application/fhir+json"
    },
    "status": "requested",
    "criteria": "Questionnaire?"
}

Whenever a resource matching the criteria is created or updated, the source server will invoke the update operation on your Pathling server.

FHIR bulk data export​

Another method of synchronizing with another FHIR server is to use the FHIR bulk data export API. If the source server supports this, it can provide a way of exporting the full contents of the server, or changes since a certain time, in NDJSON format. This can then be imported into Pathling using the import operation.

A library has been created to assist with the task of exporting from another FHIR server and importing into Pathling - see pathling-import for more details.