High-level design principles related to the FHIR® profiles

Introduction

GP Connect versions 1.x use the FHIR STU3 standard to specify the API and data models (known as profiles).

INTEROPen

GP Connect FHIR profiles specified within this site have been developed by NHS Digital and where available use CareConnect profiles created in collaboration with the INTEROPen community.

The INTEROPen vision is to create a library of nationally defined HL7® FHIR® resources and interaction patterns that implementers can adopt to simplify integration and interoperability within England’s health and social care systems.

Find out more on the INTEROPen website

Profiling principles

When creating the profiled FHIR resources GP Connect have aimed to improve interoperability by:

• aligning, where available, to the CareConnect profiles produced by INTEOPen
• storing profiles on GitHub
• publishing profiles to fhir.nhs.uk
• carrying the major version in the name of a profile (for example, gpconnect-patient-1) and major/minor version within StructureDefinition/Conformance.
• not mandating profile elements unless this cardinality will apply for all existing and future use cases
• applying must support flags to elements which hold key information within the resources

GP Connect FHIR profiles

Please see the FHIR resource guidance page for further information.