FHIR - Beta
Connect your EHR system to Kizen Agentic Workflows. Read and write live FHIR data and synchronize that data back into Kizen Records.
Audience: Admins, Developers, Solution Architects
Purpose: Explains what the FHIR integration is, when to use it, and how it works within your Agentic Workflows
Overview
Use the FHIR integration to connect Kizen to your EHR system. Read and write clinical resource data directly from Agentic Workflows, and then synchronize that data back into your Kizen environment.
This integration is designed for EHR systems that comply with the HL7® FHIR® standard.
What Is the FHIR Integration?
The FHIR integration adds nine action steps to the Agentic Workflow builder in Kizen:
FHIR Authenticate: Authenticates the integration to a FHIR server
FHIR Read: Reads a FHIR resource
FHIR Search: Searches FHIR resources and returns the results
FHIR Create: Creates a new FHIR resource from data in Kizen
FHIR Update: Overwrites an existing FHIR resource with data from Kizen
FHIR Patch: Changes parts of an existing FHIR resource with data from Kizen without replacing it completely
Create Kizen Record: Creates a Record in Kizen from a FHIR resource
Parse FHIR Resource: Prepares one or more FHIR resources for batch import into Kizen
Batch Import via SmartConnector: Uses a SmartConnector to import parsed FHIR resources into Kizen
You configure the connection to your FHIR server once, as an integration secret in Kizen.
The integration supports a single FHIR environment or multiple environments, each with its own connection credentials. If you have more than one environment, you specify which to query when you call a FHIR action from your Agentic Workflow.
See Set Up FHIR in Kizen for details.
Typical Agentic Workflow Sequences
The FHIR actions are designed for you to chain together in an Agentic Workflow. Here are some examples of typical sequences:
To synchronize a single FHIR resource to a Kizen Record: FHIR Authenticate → FHIR Read → Create Kizen Record
To batch-import FHIR resources through a SmartConnector: FHIR Authenticate → FHIR Search → Parse FHIR Resource → Batch Import via SmartConnector
To write back data to your EHR system: FHIR Authenticate → FHIR Create or FHIR Update or FHIR Patch
When to Use the FHIR Integration
Use the FHIR integration when an Agentic Workflow needs to read or write live data between FHIR and Kizen before continuing to the next step. You don't need to duplicate your FHIR data in Kizen to make use of this data in Agentic Workflows. The integration handles the communication with your FHIR server and supplies live data at your request.
The integration is ideal for healthcare operations teams and solutions engineers building clinical workflows.
Common Use Cases
Here are some common use cases of the FHIR integration:
Searching a FHIR server for patient resources, parsing the results, and batch-importing them into Kizen on a regular schedule
Reading patient and treatment data from an EHR system when new lab results arrive
Confirming appointments with patients, capturing patient responses, and writing clinical notes back to the EHR system
How the FHIR Integration Works
Before you configure the FHIR integration, it's important to understand how it functions at a conceptual level.
FHIR Version
The integration is designed to work with FHIR R4, the industry default. It hasn't been tested with FHIR R5 or R6 servers, and it doesn't support FHIR STU3.
Connection Model
The integration connects to your FHIR server over SMART Backend Services, an OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials Grant that uses signed JSON Web Tokens for authentication. The integration keeps track of your connection credentials as an integration secret.
A single secret can hold credentials for multiple FHIR environments, such as production and staging, as separate keys. You select which environment to use at each FHIR step of your Agentic Workflow.
Authentication
The integration obtains a new access token on every execution of the FHIR Authenticate action in your Agentic Workflow and presents the token to subsequent FHIR actions on your behalf. To maximize security, the integration doesn't cache the token between runs of the Agentic Workflow, so you need a fresh token each time.
Under normal conditions, the token shouldn't expire before your Agentic Workflow completes, but if does, re-run the Agentic Workflow.
Field Mapping
To synchronize data between FHIR and Kizen, you create Objects in Kizen and then map the Custom Fields of these Objects to the corresponding fields in the FHIR resource. The integration uses a mapping syntax to describe the path to the desired field. This directive goes in the description of the Custom Field in Kizen.
Most of the available FHIR actions don't require this additional setup. But for those that do, namely Create Kizen Record and Parse FHIR Resource, properly mapped Custom Fields are necessary for the action to work.
For more information, see Set Up FHIR in Kizen.
Scheduled Synchronization
The integration doesn't include a built-in scheduled synchronization feature, where FHIR data in Kizen automatically updates itself upon changes. However, you can achieve a similar effect by running a batch-import sequence as a scheduled, recurring Agentic Workflow.
Step Execution
Each FHIR action step executes synchronously, so the Agentic Workflow waits at the step until it completes. The step times out on the Kizen side after 30 seconds.
Rate Limiting
Rate limits are subject to your FHIR server and EHR system. If the FHIR server returns HTTP status code 429 Too Many Requests in a step of your Agentic Workflow, the integration retries the step three times before failing.
Failure Handling
If a connection or action fails, for example because of invalid credentials, network difficulties, or improper configuration, the step fails immediately and results in an error message. Kizen doesn't automatically retry a failed step, so after you correct the underlying issue, rerun the step manually.
For more information, see Troubleshoot FHIR.
Data Integrity
If your Agentic Workflow writes data back to FHIR, be sure to validate its behavior thoroughly on non-production data first. You can't roll back a write operation after it executes, and the operation might partially apply if an error occurs during execution.
Available FHIR Actions and Topics
For step-by-step instructions on using the FHIR integration, see the following topics:
What's Next
To configure your FHIR server to work Kizen and enter your connection credentials as an integration secret, continue to Set Up FHIR in Kizen.
HL7, FHIR, and the FHIR FLAME DESIGN are the registered trademarks of Health Level Seven International, and their use does not constitute endorsement by HL7.
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