Connectors
Connectors transform your data into a format that can be understood by healthcare systems such as EHRs. They allow your pipelines to work directly with data in HL7 interoperability standard formats, such as CDA or FHIR, without the headache of parsing and validating the data yourself.
Connectors are what give you the power to build end-to-end pipelines that interact with real-time healthcare systems.
Available connectors
Connectors parse data from a specific format into FHIR resources and store them in a Document container.
Some connectors require the same instance to be used for both input and output as they respond to a synchronous call, while others may be input or output only.
| Connector | FHIR Resources | Access | Same instance I/O? |
|---|---|---|---|
| CdaConnector | DocumentReference | Document.text, Document.fhir.problem_list, Document.fhir.medication_list, Document.fhir.allergy_list |
✅ |
| CdsFhirConnector | Any FHIR Resource | Document.fhir.get_prefetch_resources() |
✅ |
Use Cases
Each connector can be mapped to a specific use case in the sandbox module.
| Connector | Use Case |
|---|---|
CdaConnector |
Clinical Documentation |
CdsFhirConnector |
Clinical Decision Support |
Adding connectors to your pipeline
To add connectors to your pipeline, use the .add_input() and .add_output() methods.
from healthchain.pipeline import Pipeline
from healthchain.io import CdaConnector
pipeline = Pipeline()
# In this example, we're using the same connector instance for input and output
cda_connector = CdaConnector()
pipeline.add_input(cda_connector)
pipeline.add_output(cda_connector)
Connectors are currently intended for development and testing purposes only. They are not production-ready, although this is something we are working towards on our long-term roadmap. If there is a specific connector you would like to see, please feel free to open an issue or contact us!