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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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Use the CData ODBC Driver for FHIR in MicroStrategy Desktop


Connect to FHIR data in MicroStrategy Desktop using the CData ODBC Driver for FHIR.

MicroStrategy is an analytics and mobility platform that enables data-driven innovation. When paired with the CData ODBC Driver for FHIR, you gain database-like access to live FHIR data from MicroStrategy, expanding your reporting and analytics capabilities. In this article, we walk through adding FHIR as a data source in MicroStrategy Desktop and creating a simple visualization of FHIR data.

The CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live FHIR data in MicroStrategy due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from MicroStrategy to FHIR, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to FHIR and utilizes the embedded SQL Engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze FHIR data using native MicroStrategy data types.

Connect to FHIR as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to FHIR follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments.

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.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Windows

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.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for FHIR in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini

[CData FHIR Sys] Driver = CData ODBC Driver for FHIR Description = My Description URL = http://test.fhir.org/r4b/ ConnectionType = Generic ContentType = JSON AuthScheme = None

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Connect to and Visualize FHIR Data using MicroStrategy Desktop

In addition to connecting FHIR in MicroStrategy enterprise products, you can connect to FHIR in MicroStrategy Desktop. Follow the steps below to add FHIR data as a dataset and create visualizations and reports of FHIR data.

  1. Open MicroStrategy Desktop and create a new dossier.
  2. In the datasets panel, click New Data, select Databases, and select Type a Query as the Import Option.
  3. Add a new data source and choose DSN data sources.
  4. Choose the DSN you previously configured (likely CData FHIR Sys) and select Generic DBMS in the Version menu.
  5. Set the User and Password properties for the DSN (or use placeholder values) and name the data source.
  6. Select the new database instance to view the tables. You may need to manually click the search icon in the Available Tables section to see the tables.
  7. Create a SQL query for the FHIR data (see below) and click Execute SQL to test the query. SELECT * FROM Patient NOTE: Since we create a live connection, we can execute a SELECT * query and utilize the filtering and aggregation features native to the MicroStrategy products.
  8. Click Finish and choose to connect live.
  9. Choose a visualization, choose fields to display (data types are discovered automatically through dynamic metadata discovery) and apply any filters to create a new visualization of FHIR data. Where possible, the complex queries generated by the filters and aggregations will be pushed down to FHIR, while any unsupported operations (which can include SQL functions and JOIN operations) will be managed client-side by the CData SQL Engine embedded in the driver.
  10. Once you are finished configuring the dossier, click File -> Save.

Using the CData ODBC Driver for FHIR in MicroStrategy Desktop, you can easily create robust visualizations and reports on FHIR data. Read our other articles on connecting to FHIR in MicroStrategy and connecting to FHIR in MicroStrategy Web for more examples.