I. What to Expect

 

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By the end of this guide, you’ll be able to configure Smile CDR to use terminology services provided by a third-party FHIR terminology server.

 

II. Background

 

 

Terminology normalization and validation is a significant aspect in clinical context and an important topic in FHIR specification. FHIR terminology includes, but is not limited to, terminology resources such as CodeSystem, ValueSet, ConceptMaps and validation operations such as $lookup, $validate-code and $translate.

 

Recognizing the integration needs for using advanced terminology services latest to the FHIR specification and/or incubated terminology servers, in addition to in-house terminology service, Smile CDR provides out-of-the-box support for third-party terminology service integration through minimal configurations within the web admin console. By enabling the remote terminology service, terminology related operations will be forwarded to the desired terminology service provider and the result will be evaluated and presented seamlessly.

III. Objective

 

This document will provide a step-by-step guide to configuring Smile CDR to work with remote terminology servers through their FHIR APIs as well as terminology services for FHIR terminology resources such as CodeSystem, ValueSet and ConceptMap.

III. Prerequisites

 

The following items/knowledge are required:

 

  1. You’ve read and followed the procedures outlined in the Smile Installation guide and have installed Smile CDR

  2. Basic knowledge of FHIR terminology resources and FHIR terminology services

  3. Acquire the FHIR API URL of the desired FHIR Terminology server

  4. Acquire Basic Authorization info to access desired FHIR Terminology server (if required)

IV. Instructions

 

  1. In the Web Admin Console, select the Persistence module

  2. Scroll down and find the “FHIR Validation Services” section

  3. Set Remote Terminology Service to “Yes” as per the below

     


  4. Set “Remote Terminology Service: Base URL” to the FHIR API of the FHIR Terminology Server (in this example, we are using a publicly accessible terminology server powered by CSIRO)



  5. Optional: set Basic Auth Username and Password if required by the security settings of the FHIR Terminology Server you wish to use (in this example, it’s not required)



  6. In the Persistence module, select “Save” then “restart”

  7. Select “FHIR Endpoint,” then scroll down to the “=Dependencies” section

  8. In “Validation Support,” select the Persistence module with remote terminology services enabled



  9. Save and restart the FHIR Endpoint

  10. Activate FHIR terminology operations on the FHIR server by sending validation requests to the FHIR endpoint. Take the following GET request as an example:

    (base_url)/CodeSystem/$lookup?system=http://snomed.info/sct&code=17311000168105

  11. Expect a similar response from the server for the successful integration with the terminology server

Reference Links

 

For official Smile documentation on remote terminology services: https://smilecdr.com/docs/validation_and_conformance/remote_terminology_services.html