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Authoring FHIR terminology resources

Date Published:
10 February 2021

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Authoring FHIR terminology resources

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Important controls to apply

When you create or upload a FHIR terminology resource to the Terminology Server it is available to everyone to read and, importantly, available for any other author to change (including removing your access to it or to delete it).

You are therefore strongly advised to take advantage of the community functionality within the Terminology Server and add a community security label to all resources that you create so that you can control who can read and write to the FHIR terminology resources that you create.

By using the community functionality, you can ensure that resources that are intended for restricted use are made available only to those people or systems that should have access to them, or make them available to any users on a read-only basis whilst retaining write access to a tighter, controlled group of users.

For more information, refer to chapters 9, 10, 11 and 12 of this guidance module, as well as I want to use the Terminology Server in a community.

Getting started

Authoring terminology resources can be done using the Snapper:Author web tool.  

To manage your terminology resources, you need to have a valid log in with an author role. If you have not yet registered for an account, please refer to the account management guide to learn more about how to self register and how to request an author role.  We do not usually request author roles to users outside NHS England. 

To log in:

1. On the Snapper homepage, click on the green Login button at the top of the screen.

Snapper:author - Login button

2. Select the identity provider you used when registering for the service then enter your username and password.

Select identity provider

 

3. Once logged in, you can log out using the Logout button. You can access your account details through the Account button. Both are found in the top-right corner.

Snapper:author - Log out and Account buttons

 

Snapper author tours

You will need to be able to log in as an author to add a new FHIR resource. 

You can use Snapper:Author to create code systems. You may find it useful to watch the Snapper:Author in-tool tours accessed via the blue buttons at the bottom of the screen. These tours will show you how to build new code systems, value sets and concept maps, as well as how to change FHIR settings, go into a little more depth on uploading than explained in the resource tours, and learn how to locate resources on the FHIR Terminology Server for viewing and editing.

Snapper author screen

Last edited: 10 January 2024 11:48 am

Chapters

  1. Authoring FHIR terminology resources
  2. Create a new code system
  3. How to create a new value set
  4. Make a value set that contains an entire code system
  5. Create a new concept map
  6. How to import your resource as a JSON file into Snapper
  7. How to delete a FHIR resource
  8. Modify an existing FHIR resource
  9. Securing a FHIR resource for a community
  10. Resource community permission strategies
  11. Removing community permissions from a resource
  12. Anonymous global read access to a resource
  13. Create a post co-ordinated expression library
  14. Using a post co-ordinated expression library
  15. Batch adding resources in FHIR Bundles
  16. Using system-to-system account credentials