Connect to FHIR Data from PowerBuilder via ADO.NET

This article demonstrates using the CData ADO.NET Provider for FHIR in PowerBuilder, showcasing the ease of use and compatibility of these standards-based controls across various platforms and development technologies that support Microsoft .NET, including Appeon PowerBuilder.

This article shows how to create a basic PowerBuilder application that uses the CData ADO.NET Provider for FHIR to retrieve data.

1. In a new WPF Window Application solution, add all the Visual Controls needed for the connection properties. Below is a typical connection string:

   URL=http://test.fhir.org/r4b/;ConnectionType=Generic;ContentType=JSON;AuthScheme=None;

   Set URL to the Service Base URL of the FHIR server. This is the address where the resources are defined in the FHIR server you would like to connect to. Set ConnectionType to a supported connection type. Set ContentType to the format of your documents. Set AuthScheme based on the authentication requirements for your FHIR server.

   Generic, Azure-based, AWS-based, and Google-based FHIR server implementations are supported.

   Sample Service Base URLs

   • Generic: http://my_fhir_server/r4b/
   • Azure: https://MY_AZURE_FHIR.azurehealthcareapis.com/
   • AWS: https://healthlake.REGION.amazonaws.com/datastore/DATASTORE_ID/r4/
   • Google: https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/

   Generic FHIR Instances

   The product supports connections to custom instances of FHIR. Authentication to custom FHIR servers is handled via OAuth (read more about OAuth in the Help documentation. Before you can connect to custom FHIR instances, you must set ConnectionType to Generic.

2. Add the DataGrid control from the .NET controls.
3. Configure the columns of the DataGrid control. Below are several columns from the Account table:

   <DataGrid AutoGenerateColumns="False" Margin="13,249,12,14" Name="datagrid1" TabIndex="70" ItemsSource="{Binding}">
   <DataGrid.Columns>
    <DataGridTextColumn x:Name="idColumn" Binding="{Binding Path=Id}" Header="Id" Width="SizeToHeader" />
    <DataGridTextColumn x:Name="nameColumn" Binding="{Binding Path=Id}" Header="Id" Width="SizeToHeader" />
   		...
   	</DataGrid.Columns>
   </DataGrid>
   

4. Add a reference to the CData ADO.NET Provider for FHIR assembly.

Connect the DataGrid

Once the visual elements have been configured, you can use standard ADO.NET objects like Connection, Command, and DataAdapter to populate a DataTable with the results of an SQL query:

System.Data.CData.FHIR.FHIRConnection conn 
conn = create System.Data.CData.FHIR.FHIRConnection(connectionString)

System.Data.CData.FHIR.FHIRCommand comm 
comm = create System.Data.CData.FHIR.FHIRCommand(command, conn)

System.Data.DataTable table
table = create System.Data.DataTable

System.Data.CData.FHIR.FHIRDataAdapter dataAdapter
dataAdapter = create System.Data.CData.FHIR.FHIRDataAdapter(comm)
dataAdapter.Fill(table)	
datagrid1.ItemsSource=table.DefaultView

The code above can be used to bind data from the specified query to the DataGrid.