EU Health Data API, published by HL7 Europe. This guide is not an authorized publication; it is the continuous build for version 1.0.0-ballot built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) CI Build. This version is based on the current content of https://github.com/euridice-org/eu-health-data-api/ and changes regularly. See the Directory of published versions

Resource Exchange Patterns

Resource publication means submitting individual clinical FHIR resources to another system for incorporation into its data. It differs from document publication, where a Document Publisher submits a document using ITI-105.

Current Scope

This version of the IG specifies resource search and read access, not a resource-publication interface. A Resource Access Provider is assumed to have access to the resources it serves. It may obtain them by:

1. Creating resources from user-entered data
2. Querying another Resource Access Provider as a Resource Consumer
3. Extracting resources from documents received as a Document Access Provider
4. Receiving data through another exchange method and translating it to FHIR resources

These approaches do not require a separate resource-publication transaction in this IG.

Considerations for Resource Publication

Accepting resources for incorporation may require more than a FHIR create or update interaction:

• References: Referenced resources must be available or resolved, and source identifiers may need to be mapped to local identifiers.
• Workflow: The recipient must know how to handle the submitted resource. The required behavior varies by resource type and use case.
• Reconciliation: The recipient may need to validate and reconcile incoming data with existing records, potentially including clinical review.

Use-case-specific guides, such as IHE MPD for medication workflows, address these concerns for particular resource sets.

Possible Future Approaches

• Resource publication: Use-case-specific implementation guides could define how resources are submitted and incorporated.
• FHIR Subscriptions: A provider can notify a consumer that data has changed, after which the consumer retrieves the data using search or read interactions. The Subscriptions R5 Backport supports topic-based subscriptions on FHIR R4. Notification followed by retrieval is distinct from submitting resources for incorporation; it does not by itself define a resource-publication interface.

These are informative directions for future work, not additional conformance requirements in this version.