Access FHIR Data in PHP through Connect Server

You can use CData Connect Server to access FHIR data from SQL Server clients, without needing to perform an ETL or cache data. Follow the steps below to create a virtual SQL Server database for FHIR and connect to FHIR data in real time through PHP's standard SQL Server interface, i.e. sqlsrv_connect.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for FHIR, allowing you to easily build reports from live FHIR data in PHP — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, PHP generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to FHIR, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested FHIR data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for FHIR Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "FHIR" from Available Data Sources.
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 Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to FHIR data from PHP.

Connect in PHP

The following examples show how to use object-oriented interfaces to connect and execute queries. Initialize the connection object with the following parameters to connect to the virtual SQL Server database:

• Server name/Host: Specify the remote host location where the service is running.
• Username: Specify the username for a user you authorized in Connect Server.
• Password: Specify the password for the authorized user account.
• Database Name: Specify the name of the virtual database you created for FHIR.
• Port: Specify the port the service is running on, port 1433 in this example.

sqlsrv_connect

<?php
$serverName = "connect_server_url, 1433"; //Connect Server Address, portNumber (default is 1433)
$connectionInfo = array( "Database"=>"FHIR1", "UID"=>"userName", "PWD"=>"password");
$conn = sqlsrv_connect( $serverName, $connectionInfo);

if( $conn ) {
     echo "Connection established.<br>";
}else{
     echo "Connection could not be established.<br>";
     die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}
?>

PDO

<?php
<?php
$user = my_connect_user
$pass = my_connect_pass

$pdo = new PDO("sqlsrv:Server=connect_server_url,1433;Database=FHIR1", $user , $pass);

?>

Query in PHP

With the connection established, you can then access tables. The following steps walk through the example:

1. Query the table; for example, Patient. The results will be stored as an associative array in the $result object.
2. Iterate over each row and column, printing the values to display in the PHP page.
3. Close the connection.

sqlsrv_connect

$result = $sqlsrv_connect->query("SELECT Id, [name-use] FROM Patient WHERE [address-city] = 'New York'");
while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$sqlsrv_connect->close();

PDO

$result = $pdo->query("SELECT Id, [name-use] FROM Patient WHERE [address-city] = 'New York'");
while($row = $result->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
  foreach ($row as $k=>$v) {
    echo "$k : $v";
    echo "<br>"; 
  }
}
$result = null;
$pdo = null;

SQL Server Access to FHIR Data using PHP

You have retrieved live FHIR Data using PHP. Now, you can easily access data sources and more — all without replicating FHIR data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, try CData Connect Server.