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Build FHIR-Connected Apps in Mendix



Use CData Connect Cloud to create an OData feed for FHIR Data and create custom apps in Mendix.

Mendix is a high-productivity app platform that allows you to build and maintain both mobile and web applications at-scale. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, Mendix provides instant, cloud-to-cloud access to FHIR data for applications. This article demonstrates how to connect to a CData Connect Cloud data source from within Mendix.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for FHIR, allowing you to import data from live FHIR data in Mendix — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build web and mobile applications from within Mendix, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to FHIR, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested FHIR data quickly.

Configure FHIR Connectivity for Mendix

Connectivity to FHIR from Mendix is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with FHIR data from Mendix, we start by creating and configuring a FHIR connection.

  1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
  2. Select "FHIR" from the Add Connection panel
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to FHIR.

    Set URL to the Service Base URL of the FHIR server. This is the address where the resources are defined in the FHIR server you would like to connect to. Set ConnectionType to a supported connection type. Set ContentType to the format of your documents. Set AuthScheme based on the authentication requirements for your FHIR server.

    Generic, Azure-based, AWS-based, and Google-based FHIR server implementations are supported.

    Sample Service Base URLs

    • Generic: http://my_fhir_server/r4b/
    • Azure: https://MY_AZURE_FHIR.azurehealthcareapis.com/
    • AWS: https://healthlake.REGION.amazonaws.com/datastore/DATASTORE_ID/r4/
    • Google: https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/

    Generic FHIR Instances

    The product supports connections to custom instances of FHIR. Authentication to custom FHIR servers is handled via OAuth (read more about OAuth in the Help documentation. Before you can connect to custom FHIR instances, you must set ConnectionType to Generic.

  4. Click Create & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add FHIR Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add FHIR OData Endpoints in Connect Cloud

After connecting to FHIR, create OData Endpoints for the desired table(s).

  1. Navigate to the OData page and click Add to create new OData endpoints
  2. Select the FHIR connection (e.g. FHIR1) and click Next
  3. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Confirm

With the connection and OData endpoints configured, you are ready to connect to FHIR data from Mendix.

Build a FHIR-Connected App

With OData endpoints added to Connect Cloud, you can build an app in Mendix with live access to FHIR data.

Downloading the OData Metadata File

When creating a connection in Mendix, the connection flow requires a Data Source Contract File. Follow these steps to download the OData metadata file for CData Connect Cloud using curl, a command line tool:

  1. Open a command-line window for your operating system. On Windows, open the start menu, type cmd, and press the Enter key to open a command prompt. On macOS and Linux, open a Terminal window.
  2. To check if curl is installed on your system, type curl -help and press the enter key. If it is not installed, install it from the curl website.
  3. Issue the following curl command, replacing USER with your CData Connect Cloud username and PAT with the PAT you generated above: curl -u USER:PAT https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/service/$metadata -o metadata.xml
  4. Locate the metadata.xml file that the curl command created and move it to an accessible location.

Connecting to CData Connect Cloud in Mendix

Follow these steps to establish a connection from Mendix to CData Connect Cloud:

  1. Login to Mendix and open the Data Hub page.
  2. In the Register a Data Source section, select OData.
  3. Upload the metadata.xml file from the steps above and click Next.
  4. Enter your desired values for Data Source Name and Data Source Version. In the Data Source Relative Path field, enter /api/odata/service and click Next.
  5. On the Application information page, click Register a new application.
  6. Enter a name in Application Name and select a technical owner (by default, this is the user who is currently logged in).
  7. Click Next. In the Environment Name field, enter a desired name (for example, CData Connect Cloud). In the Environment Location field, enter https://cloud.cdata.com and select the appropriate Environment Type (e.g. Production), depending on what is needed.
  8. Click Done! to create your connection.

You can now use your connection in Mendix Studio Pro to easily create applications with access to live FHIR data.

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