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The FHIR ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from FHIR, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access FHIR data like you would a database - read, write, and update FHIR 0, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

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DataBind Controls to FHIR Data in C++Builder


DataBind to FHIR data in C++Builder with standard components and controls.

The CData ODBC Driver for FHIR makes it easy to integrate connectivity to live FHIR data with standard data access components in C++Builder. This article shows how to create a simple visual component library (VCL) application in C++Builder that connects to FHIR data, executes queries, and displays the results in a grid. An additional section shows how to use FireDAC components to execute commands from code.

Create a Connection to FHIR Data

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

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.

You can then follow the steps below to use the Data Explorer to create a FireDAC connection to FHIR.

  1. In a new VCL Forms application, expand the FireDAC node in the Data Explorer.
  2. Right-click the ODBC Data Source node in the Data Explorer.
  3. Click Add New Connection.
  4. Enter a name for the connection.
  5. In the FireDAC Connection Editor that appears, set the DataSource property to the name of the ODBC DSN for FHIR.

Create VCL Applications with Connectivity to FHIR Data

Follow the procedure below to start querying FHIR data from a simple VCL application that displays the results of a query in a grid.

  1. Drop a TFDConnection component onto the form and set the following properties:

    • ConnectionDefName: Select the FireDAC connection to FHIR.
    • Connected: Select True from the menu and, in the dialog that appears, enter your credentials.

  2. Drop a TFDQuery component onto the form and set the properties below:

    • Connection: Set this property to the TFDConnection component, if this component is not already specified.

    • SQL: Click the button in the SQL property and enter a query. For example:

      SELECT Id, [name-use] FROM Patient WHERE [address-city] = 'New York'
    • Active: Set this property to true.

  3. Drop a TDataSource component onto the form and set the following property:

    • DataSet: In the menu for this property, select the name of the TFDQuery component.

  4. Drop a TDBGrid control onto the form and set the following property:

    • DataSource: Select the name of the TDataSource.
  5. Drop a TFDGUIxWaitCursor onto the form — this is required to avoid a run-time error.

Execute Commands to FHIR with FireDAC Components

You can use the TFDConnection and TFQuery components to execute queries to FHIR data. This section provides FHIR-specific examples of executing queries with the TFQuery component.

Connect to FHIR Data

To connect to the data source, set the Connected property of the TFDConnection component to true. You can set the same properties from code:

FDConnection1->ConnectionDefName = "CData FHIR ODBC Source"; FDConnection1->Connected = true;

To connect the TFDQuery component to FHIR data, set the Connection property of the component. When a TFDQuery component is added at design time, its Connection property is automatically set to point to a TFDConnection on the form, as in the application above.

Create Parameterized Queries

To create a parameterized query, use the following syntax below:

FDQuery1->SQL->Text = "select * from Patient where [address-city] = :[address-city]"; FDQuery1->ParamByName("[address-city]")->AsString = "New York"; query->Open();

The example above binds a string-type input parameter by name and then opens the dataset that results.

Prepare the Statement

Preparing statements is costly in system resources and time. The connection must be active and open while a statement is prepared. By default, FireDAC prepares the query to avoid recompiling the same query over and over. To disable statement preparation, set ResourceOptions.DirectExecute to True; for example, when you need to execute a query only once.

Execute a Query

To execute a query that returns a result set, such as a select query, use the Open method. The Open method executes the query, returns the result set, and opens it. The Open method will return an error if the query does not produce a result set.

FDQuery1->SQL->Text := "select * from Patient where [address-city] = :[address-city]"; FDQuery1.ParamByName("[address-city]")->AsString = "New York"; FDQuery1->Open();