Information Sharing Patterns (Topologies) demonstrate and describe how various design patterns can influence access, security and use of APIs

Important: All phases outlined below are indicative and subject to on-going review.

Patterns

This section has been included to emphasise the importance of understanding the associated Information Sharing Pattern when deciding how to use Care Connect APIs within solutions. The information has been taken from developer.nhs.uk.

Overview

A “pattern” is a formal way of documenting a solution to a design problem in a particular field of expertise for example in the case of an API sharing clinical information between systems. The information in this section has been reproduced and shortened from developer.nhs.uk

Patterns are not mutually exclusive: many real solutions will use more than one pattern.
Solutions may evolve from simpler to more complex patterns over time.
Some patterns will be better for specific sharing needs than others – there is no “one size fits all”.
Some patterns will scale better to larger populations.
Some patterns require additional capabilities or services to be in place.

List of patterns

Below is a list of the more commonly used patterns that can be supported by one or more of FHIR’s defined exchange paradigms. If you require more detail please go to developer.nhs.uk and click on the pattern for more information.

Single Shared Application
Portal
Click Through
Store and Notify
Broadcast (Point to Point Sharing)
Shared Repository
Message Broker
Registry Repository
Publish Subscribe

Patterns and Care Connect APIs

The Care Connect standard doesn’t mandate a specific exchange paradigm so this will need to be decided upon when a Care Connect API is designed. The Information Sharing Pattern may restrict the choice of Exchange Paradigm and how Care Connect APIs can be applied to a solution. This implementation guide also offers Case Studies to expose and demonstrate how Care Connect APIs can or have been used to interoperate with other systems, patterns, and level of digital maturity within and between organisations.

Note: The Care Connect Reference Implementation can be used for all of the exchange patterns listed above. Further configuration and extension would be necessary broadcast, message broker, registry repository and publish subscribe models. Please see the process and components described in the RESTful API Care Connect Reference Implementation and try using it for yourself.

Contribute: If you want to get involved with CareConnect APIs then please get in touch with apilabs@nhs.net or see more information at INTEROPen | Provide design patterns and API usage case studies by getting in touch with careconnect@interopen.org

API Considerations

Other API consideration are shown below. Please click on the parts of the API process to continue your API creation journey.

Contribute: If you want to get involved with CareConnect APIs then please get in touch with apilabs@nhs.net or see more information at INTEROPen | Get in involved and contribute to the above API considerations

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