What is FITE and what does it do as part of the SAFHIR Platform?

FHIR Implementation guide Template Engine (FITE)

The FHIR Implementation Guide Template Engine (FITE) is an important component in the SAFHIR platform. FITE acts as a proxy to one, or more, FHIR APIs. FITE provides the following capabilities:

  • Enforces filtering on data requested from a FHIR API.
  • Enables custom, data-driven crosswalks to be executed between FHIR API endpoints.
  • Enables custom operations to be implemented to meet Implementation Guide use cases.
  • Creates APIs at runtime based upon the specification in a FHIR Capability Statement.
  • Generates the runtime Swagger Documentation to support the FHIR APIs that FITE is proxying.

Why is this important?

Many Payers use business partners to provide services for their Health Plan members. Increasingly these business partners, such as Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBM), provide FHIR APIs for the data they manage on behalf of the Health Plan. For example, providing a drug formulary. FITE provides the capability to present these business partner FHIR APIs through a single Health Plan managed environment. FITE also provides the ability to link between these independent FHIR APIs using data provided in the FHIR API by the Health Plan. For example the Health Plan may load a coverage record that contains the member’s formulary information. FITE can then be configured to map from the coverage record into the PBM’s FHIR API to be able to retrieve the member’s Formulary data.

How does FITE help developers?

When a FITE instance is launched. FITE constructs:

  • The FHIR API from a FHIR Capability Statement
  • An OpenAPI.json document (For Swagger)

This approach ensures that the Swagger documentation is always in line with the published Capability Statement. A Developer can download the JSON file and import it into Swagger/OpenAPI-compliant User Interface in order to exercise the API. Or they can import the json file into Postman and construct a collection that speeds up testing and development of applications that interact with the FHIR APIs.

How is FITE Architected?

FITE is a proprietary component that has been developed by Onyx Technology, LLC. FITE is built using Python 3.x. FITE is hosted on a Linux virtual machine. FITE is designed to enable rapid customization for each Onyx client.

[]:

Tags: safhir faq fhir