Stream: hapi
Topic: HAPI as a terminology service?
Joe Flack (Apr 12 2022 at 00:25):
Hello~. Some colleagues and I are using HAPI for a terminology service: https://github.com/HOT-Ecosystem/hapi-fhir-jpaserver-starter
However, @Davera Gabriel mentioned that @Peter Jordan mentioned that HAPI wasn't very suitable for a terminology service. But I don't know why that is. Seems to be working well enough for our purposes so far. Davera suggested that I could discover more about why that is the case by asking here on Zulip.
Joe Flack (Apr 12 2022 at 00:26):
Anyone have any opinions or suggestions on this topic? I'd be loathe to start something from scratch, when HAPI seems to be working decently for us so far. Unless there is another existing open source project that is at least as far developed for FHIR terminology services?
Peter Jordan (Apr 12 2022 at 01:03):
@Joe Flack you have misunderstood the point I made by virtue of playing 'Chinese Whispers'. :) . The point that I made to @Davera Gabriel is that 'vanilla' HAPI is an all-purpose FHIR Server and, as such, requires a certain degree of additional customization to be used as a dedicated FHIR Terminology Server. Several of the existing FHIR Terminology Server developers (e.g. OntoServer) have taken this approach.
It might be informative to look at the Vocabulary WG’s proposal for a set of minimum FHIR Terminology Server capabilities. The relevant Jira CR Ticket can be found here. My understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that HAPI does not support all of these capabilities 'out of the box'.
Brian Postlethwaite (Apr 12 2022 at 01:13):
Minimum FHIR Terminology Server capabilities feels a little arbitrary, for a specific use case would make sense (like supporting the official IG builder) but I expect there are many cases where HAPI does cover things good enough™
For handling complex terminologies like SNOMED or doing complex interactions with them you need better, but if it's just a subset that you have in an already expanded form, you can get away with quite a lot.
Peter Jordan (Apr 12 2022 at 01:20):
I'd be surprised if 'vanilla' HAPI supports all of the terminology server requests made by the Validator. Don't see what's wrong with attempting to define a set of minimum TS capabilities. Many of these form part of the Touchstone Suite of tests which have been developed over a 6-7 year period and relate to common uses of Terminology Services outside of the FHIR Tooling Ecosystem.
Brian Postlethwaite (Apr 12 2022 at 01:32):
It depends on what you're validating there, and specifically what ValueSets it needs to support.
Grahame Grieve (Apr 12 2022 at 01:32):
in fact none of the other terminology servers support everything that the IG publisher needs, by virtue of some specific stuff around UCUM and some IETF grammared code systems - only tx.fhir.org does some of those things
Grahame Grieve (Apr 12 2022 at 01:33):
OTOH, tx.fhir.org can't support everything either
Peter Jordan (Apr 12 2022 at 01:49):
Grahame Grieve said:
OTOH, tx.fhir.org can't support everything either
SNOMED CT Expression Constraint Language, for example, which is supported by several of the 'bespoke' FHIR Terminology Servers.
Patrick Werner (Apr 12 2022 at 07:20):
Joe Flack said:
Anyone have any opinions or suggestions on this topic? I'd be loathe to start something from scratch, when HAPI seems to be working decently for us so far. Unless there is another existing open source project that is at least as far developed for FHIR terminology services?
we are also using hapi as a terminology server. Yes it isn't feature complete, but good enough for our use-cases
Joe Flack (Apr 12 2022 at 18:10):
Thanks guys. @Peter Jordan Yeah, I didn't hear too much from Davera, so I didn't get the full gist.
Joe Flack (Apr 12 2022 at 18:12):
I'm familiar w/ the terminology server minimum requirements. I've been to some of those meetings. I/we don't care too much about a wide array of details. We're just looking for basic functionality. And so far, so good. OntoServer looks cool, but as it is a premium, non open source product, it's not something we're interested in.
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
