I’ve complained many times about the lack of tools for working with FHIR.
There’s an app I want that does not exist yet. If someone built it I would use it every day and so would many devs on my team.
I want a FHIR history and Provenance viewer. I want to be able to look up a resource by id or identifier and see a full history of how, when and by whom it was created and updated.
It should do two things.
1. Show me the history of an individual resource
The initial create, followed be each subsequent change, all sitting side by side in an ordered list where I can see them, open them and compare them. Bonus points for an easy comparison screen where I can compare two versions.
2. Show me the Provenance of each update to that resource
I want to know who initially created the resource and when, and I want to know who made each subsequent change to that resource.
By “who” I mean whatever entity is being captured in the Provenance resource associated with that change. This might be a user, it might be a specific app, or it might be a generic “system.”
Why do I want this and why is it valuable?
I want to be able to see how a resource was changed throughout its life. This may be a series of status changes, as a Procedure moves from “preparation” to “completed.” It may be a view of a Patient over time — changes to address, contact details, even name.
I want to be able to troubleshoot issues in test and live environments — an easy way to find out when an unexpected change occurred and which app made that change.
This has value as a tool for devs as they build and test their apps.
But more importantly it has real business value for monitoring and addressing issues with live production FHIR servers.
If you’re a dev with entrepreneurial drive looking for a FHIR project to tackle, I feel this is worth investing time in. It would benefit the community and has real commercial potential.
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