This page is part of the FHIR Specification (v0.0.82: DSTU 1). The current version which supercedes this version is 5.0.0. For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions . Page versions: R5 R4B R4 R3 R2

2.3 Messaging using FHIR Resources

FHIR Resources can be used in a traditional messaging context, much like HL7 v2. Applications asserting conformance to this framework claim to be conformant to "FHIR messaging".

In FHIR messaging, a "request message" is sent from a source application to a destination application when an event happens. Events mostly correspond to things that happen in the real world. The request message consists of a bundle identified by the tag "http://hl7.org/fhir/tag/message", with the first resource in the bundle being a MessageHeader resource. The MessageHeader resource has a code - the message event - that identifies the nature of the request message, and it also carries additional request metadata. The other resources in the bundle depend on the type of the request.

The events supported in FHIR, along with the resources that are included in them, are defined below.

The destination application processes the request and returns one or more response messages which are also a bundle of resources identified by the tag "http://hl7.org/fhir/tag/message", with the first resource in the bundle being a MessageHeader resource with a response section that reports the outcome of processing the message and any additional response resources required.

2.3.1 Basic Messaging Assumptions

This specification assumes that content will be delivered from one application to another by some delivery mechanism, and then a response will be returned to the source application. The exact mechanism of transfer is irrelevant to this specification, but may include file transfer, http based transfer, MLLP (HL7 minimal lower layer protocol), MQ series messaging or anything else. The only requirement for the transfer layer is that requests are sent to a known location and responses are returned to the source of the request. This specification considers the source and destination applications as logical entities, and the mapping from logical source and destination to implementation specific addresses is outside the scope of this specification, though this specification does provide a direct delivery mechanism below.

This specification assumes that content will be delivered from one application to another by some delivery mechanism, and then one or more responses will be returned to the source application. The agreements around the content of the messages and the behavior of the two applications form the "contract" that describes the exchange. The contract will add regional and local agreements to the rules defined in this specification.

This specification ignores the existence of interface engines and message transfer agents that exist between the source and destination. Either they are transparent to the message/transaction content and irrelevant to this specification, or they are actively involved in manipulating the message content (in particular, the source and destination headers are often changed). If these middleware agents are modifying the message content, then they become responsible for honoring the contract that applies (including applicable profiles) in both directions.

A key aspect of a message is the impact of it's content:

Some Events defined by FHIR are assigned to one of these categories, but others are not able to be categorized in advance, and the category must be determined by the content, or the context.

2.3.1.1 Message Exchange Patterns

Each FHIR request message has one or more response messages. There must be at least one response message so that the sender can know that the message was properly received. Multiple response SHALL not be returned for messages of consequence, and SHOULD not be returned for notifications.

In principle, source applications are not required to wait for a response to a transaction before issuing a new transaction. However in many cases, the messages in a given stream are dependent on each other, and must be sent and processed in order. In addition, some transfer methods may require sequential delivery of messages.

For this reason, a synchronous exchange pattern - where the sender sends a message, and waits on the same channel for a single response, and then sends the next message - are the easiest to understand and manage. The Mailbox described below works in this fashion.

However synchronous message exchange does not cater for multiple response messages, which may arise when processing queries, and also imposes through-put limitations which may become relevant at high volumes. Because of this, other complex message patterns are allowed, though none are described in detail in this specification.

2.3.1.2 Message Identifiers

An incoming message contains two identifiers: the envelope id (feed.id) and the message.identifier. Each time a new message is created, it SHALL be assigned an identifier that is unique within that message stream. Note that since message streams are often merged with other streams, it is recommended that the identifier should be globally unique. This can be achieved by using a UUID or an OID or appropriately chosen URI with a serially incrementing number. Each time a message is sent, the bundle identifier (feed.id) should be changed to a new value.

When a receiver receives and processes the message, it responds with a new message with a new identifier, wrapped in a bundle which also has a new id. The response message also quotes the request message identifier so that the source system can relate the response to its request.

2.3.1.3 Absence of Reliable Messaging

Some of the message delivery mechanisms mentioned above are reliable delivery systems - the message is always delivered, or an appropriate error is returned to the source. However most implementations use methods which do not provide reliable messaging, and either the request or the response can get lost in transit. FHIR messaging describes a simple approach that receivers SHOULD conform to in order to handle the absence of reliable messaging that maintains predictable functionality.

If the sender of the message implements reliable messaging, it SHALL do the following when it receives no response to a message within a configured timeout period:

When a receiver implements reliable messaging, it SHALL check the incoming envelope id and message identifier against a cache of previously received messages. The correct action to take depends on what is received:

The duration period for caching does generally not need to be very long. At a minimum, it could be 1 minute longer than the timeout of the sending system, though it may need to be longer depending on the re-sending policies of the sending system.

Applications that implement reliable messaging declare their reliable cache period in their conformance statement.

2.3.1.3.1 Example: Consequence

In the first example, a Clinical EHR issues an order for a particular imaging examination to be performed on a patient. This is considered to be a message of Consequence: multiple orders should not be created (in practice there are usually human review processes that catch multiple orders, but repeat orders create entropy in the system that is harmful). The EHR sends a message where the envelope id (feed.id) is UUID 1 (urn:uuid:72edc4e0-6708-42ab-9734-f56721882c10), with a Message Header that contains a message id of UUID 2 (urn:uuid:dad53a57-dcb4-4f18-b066-7239eb4b5229).

The EHR system never receives a response to the message; it does not know whether the request message got lost, or the imaging management systems was unable to process the request, or whether it successfully processed the message and the response was lost. In this case, the EHR system resends the message with same two identifiers.

In this case, the imaging system successfully received the message, and processed it. Because it receives the resent order after 1 minute (which is within it's 15 minute cache time), and the two UUIDs 1 and 2 match a message it has already processed, it knows that it already processed the order, and simply returns the previous response. In the case of additional resent queries, the application keeps sending the original response, though it may also alert system administrators that the same original message keeps being resent, since lost messages should be a rare occurrence.

When the EHR system finally receives the message, it knows how the imaging management system responded; it can be sure because the message id from the original request is echoed in the response portion of the returned message.

2.3.1.3.2 Example: Currency

In this second example, a Clinical EHR needs to know what appointment slots are available for a particular imaging procedure. This is a message of Currency: available slots are ever disappearing, and ordering a slot that has become unavailable is a waste of time for the humans and systems involved. The EHR sends a message where the envelope id (feed.id) is UUID 3 (urn:uuid:4c7f5cb2-5964-4d42-b719-e0227461818c), with a Message Header that contains a message id of UUID 4 (urn:uuid:63ED7D68-B2CC-421D-BA1C-A6C7785581F2).

The EHR system never receives a response to the message; it does not know whether the request message got lost, or the imaging management systems was unable to process the request, or whether it successfully processed the message and the response was lost. In this case, the EHR system resends the message with same message id (UUID 4), but creates a new envelope id (feed.id): (urn:uuid:c7c17fe4-9560-49c7-b2ae-42636476fb86).

In this case, the imaging system successfully received the message, and processed it. When it receives the resent order after 1 minute (which is within it's 15 minute cache time), it sees that although the message id is the same, the envelope id has changed, and it reprocesses the message again, and sends a new response.

When the EHR system finally receives the message, it knows the current slot availability on the imaging management system responded.

Note that the existence of active intermediaries (or "middleware") creates the need for this protocol - the original sender matches the response to the request based on the message id, and so an active intermediary that choose the re-initiate a query that it previously relayed cannot change the message id. This protocol avoids the need for the message id to change, and only requires change to the envelope id which is never the basis for context linking outside the immediate message exchange protocol described here.

2.3.2 Conformance Statement

Applications may only assert conformance to "FHIR messaging" if they publish a conformance statement so the claim may be verified. A conformance statement lists all the message events supported (either as sender or receiver) and for each event, a profile that states which resources are bundled (sender), or are required to be bundled (receiver), and any rules about the information content of the individual resources. The conformance statement is a resource with the name "Conformance".

2.3.3 Mailbox

The mailbox is the standard name for a service hosted on a RESTful server that accepts messages and processes them as transactions and returns a message response appropriate for the message received. The server is under no obligation to do anything particular with the resources except as required by the semantics of the event code in the message resource. A server may choose to retain the resources and make them available on a RESTful interface, but is not required to do so.

2.3.3.1 Submitting query messages and documents

The mailbox can also be used to accept queries or documents. In the case of documents, the document is "accepted" (the server takes responsibility for custody of the received document) or an HTTP error is returned. The server is under no obligation to perform any particular processing of the document except as specific trading partner agreements dictate. In the case of queries, the server receives a bundle containing a query and a set of other related resources, processes the query, and returns a bundle with a query which is a response, and any additional resources that are part of the query response.

2.3.3.2 Result of submission

Depending on the semantics of the event code or processing done on the query or document, a server may return a status code 200 OK, 201 Created, 202 Accepted or 204 No Content. If the server returns 200 OK, it SHALL return a bundle with the outcome of the event or document processing. In case of errors, the client SHALL interpret a 4xx response to indicate that there is no point resubmitting the message or document, and a 5xx response to indicate an unexpected error on the part of the server, which means that it is worth resubmitting (and doing so should not result in a duplicate message response). Repeated failures indicate either a fatal problem with the submission or a problem with the receiving application.

The following rules apply to the mailbox:

• The mailbox only accepts POST transactions - any other HTTP method will result in an HTTP error
• The request content type submitted is always a bundle containing a message or document resource as the first resource
• The response content type returned is always an HTTP error, a bundle containing a message as the first resource, or empty (if a document was received)
• If the response is an error, the body SHOULD be an Errors & Warning resource with full details
• The URL never takes any parameters
• The mailbox may be authenticated using standard HTTP authentication methods, including OAuth

This simple mailbox profile can be used by any HTTP end point that accepts FHIR messages or documents, not just FHIR RESTful servers.

In order to ensure consistency of processing, the logical rules regarding processing of envelope id and message id described above SHALL be followed when messages are processed using the mailbox. No such rules apply regarding documents - if the client receives no response, it should continue to submit the document until it does. Servers SHALL accept multiple document submissions and process them correctly.

2.3.4 Relationship between Messaging and REST

As well as this messaging framework documented here, FHIR also defines a RESTful API. The messaging and RESTful frameworks are related in that both share the same set of resources on which they operate. In fact, the basic MessageHeader resource that the messaging framework is implemented is itself a resource that can treated in a RESTful approach.

The kinds of functionality that the RESTful API and the messaging framework offer are very similar; their primary difference is architectural in nature.

For instance, the messaging framework defines an event for notifying that a administration resource has been created or updated, as does the REST API. On the other hand, there are differences in the capabilities offered - while a patient merge can be implemented as a series of RESTful operations performed by the client that update all resources linked to the patient, when a message command to merge patient records is processed, the server will do all the work, and is also able to merge in areas not exposed on the RESTful API. The REST API, however, provides a set of basic operations on all resources that would need special definitions in the messaging framework - definitions that are not provided.

There is no expectation that RESTful systems will need to offer messaging support, or vice versa, though systems may find it useful to support both sets of functionality in order to satisfy a wider range of implementers.

As a resource that can be used with the RESTful framework, the MessageHeader resource has the normal resource end-point (/MessageHeader), which is used to manage a set of static message resources. This could be used to make an archive of past messages available. Creating or updating MessageHeader resources in this fashion does not represent the actual occurrence of any event, nor can it trigger any logic associated with the actual event. It is just for managing a set of message resources.

In, addition, as described above, this specification defines the /Mailbox end-point so that RESTful servers can offer both messaging and RESTful services at once. Alternatively, messages can be transported between systems using any other method by which a stream of bytes (the message bundle) can be moved from one place to another. There is no requirement to use HTTP.

2.3.5 Event List

The message.code element carries a Coding that identifies the event that the message conveys. This table lists the message event codes defined in this specification (the system value for these is "http://hl7.org/fhir/message-type"):

In this table, the request and response columns list the focus resource for the event, along with other resources that should also be carried in the message directly (if they exist). Additional events may be defined elsewhere, though this specification does not yet define how. DSTU: Input on this is sought during the trial use period.