Smile CDR 2018.05.R01 and HAPI FHIR 3.4.0 Released!

Author:  Clement Ng

We are pleased to announce that the May releases of Smile CDR and HAPI FHIR are now live.

Smile CDR 2018.05.R01 Release

A complete list of changes in this release is available in the Changelog. Highlights include:

  • A new security module type called Scripted Inbound Security has been added. This module allows authentication/authorization flows to be implemented using customer-supplied JavaScript. This may be used to implement authorization against cloud identity providers, custom login services, etc.
  • A new FHIR server module type called Hybrid Providers has been added. Hybrid Providers allow a FHIR server to be created using customer-supplied query logic. This is equivalent to the HAPI FHIR “plain server” mode, and shares the same APIs, but also adds built-in security, auditing, and all of the power of the Smile CDR platform.
  • The SMART on FHIR outbound security module (i.e. the Smile CDR OpenID Connect server UI itself) login and approval screens are now skinnable.
  • A new FHIR operation called $expunge has been added, which can be used to physically delete old versions of data. This is useful for scenarios requiring destruction of obsolete data. This operation has several modes of operation, and requires specific permissions in order to be invoked.
  • Support for the LOINC vocabulary set has received a number of significant enhancements, including new support for automated import of the codes, valuesets, and mappings maintained by LOINC.
  • The Smile CDR terminology service now supports ConceptMap translations, meaning that code mappings may be queried, performed, and applied at runtime. We will be adding support for these operations from within the JavaScript execution environment in the upcoming release cycle in order to further enhance this API. In addition, new commands have been added to the smileutil CLI tool to import/export mappings as CSVs, allowing external editing.
  • Several new monitoring hooks have been added in order to improve integration with external monitoring systems and ITSM tools.

Smile CDR 2018.05.R01 Release

The complete list of changes can be found in the HAPI FHIR Changelog. Important highlights include:

  • HAPI FHIR now supports and requires JDK 8. Support for JDK 7 and below has officially been dropped.
  • The R4 draft structures have been updated to the latest versions.
  • Support for LOINC has been significantly improved thanks to a collaboration between the HAPI FHIR project and the Regenstrief Institute. The HAPI FHIR terminology service now imports LOINC parts, ValueSets, ConceptMaps, and all related artifacts.
  • Support for the ConceptMap $translate method has been implemented, meaning that the terminology service now covers validation as well as translation use cases. Further enhancements are planned. A utility has also been added to the HAPI FHIR CLI for importing and exporting ConceptMaps as CSV files for external editing.
  • Several index table enhancements have been made to the JPA server schema in anticipation of future changes that will improve performance and decrease index sizes. These enhancements consist of new columns that have been added and will be populated in HAPI FHIR 3.4.0 but will not actually be used until HAPI FHIR 3.5.0. Please see the changelog for an upgrade script that should be run.
  • The HAPI FHIR CLI is now available for OSX users using Homebrew.
  • The validation framework has been further harmonized so that DSTU2 resources will now also share the harmonized DSTU3/R4 validation codebase. This has resulted in a significantly more accurate validator for DSTU2 resources.

Thank you to all Smile CDR customers and members of the HAPI FHIR community for continuing to be a part of our mission to bring interoperable healthcare to the world.