IM1 - Interface Mechanism v1.0.0

IM1 - Interface Mechanism v1.0.0

ID

S47

Version

1.0.0

Type

Interoperability Standard

Status

Retired

Effective Date

Introduction

IM1 is a mechanism for accessing data held in GP Systems (Systems providing one or more Capabilities as part of the GP IT Futures Framework). The interface mechanism should facilitate the following use-cases: 

  • Patient - real-time access to APIs exposed over the Internet supporting both read and limited write / transactional operations for the purposes of Patient/Citizen Facing Services (including registration and authentication of Citizens)

  • Bulk - Bulk data extracts of all data held by the GP System Supplier

  • Practice real-time APIs for integrating systems, which may operate locally

Provider Suppliers acting as consumers of their own interfaces must take note of requirements in the Interoperability Standard, particularly those relating to equitable access to functionality and data (Requirement: ISNFR07)

Please also note that suppliers must be compliant with the overarching Commercial Standard, and comply with the Model Interface Licence contained within.

Applicability

A system or application is required to provide IM1 interfaces if ANY of the following are true:

  • It offered IM1 interfaces under GPSoC

  • It offers ALL Foundation capabilities under GP IT Futures

Where a GP Connect interface capability is available, suppliers would be expected to develop against that, rather than developing a new bespoke or proprietary interface.

A system or application may wish to consume IM1 interfaces where they have a requirement to access data held in GP Systems.

Requirements 

This page describes integration requirements for systems which are required to be an IM1 interface provider and\or consumer.

The scope of this document includes:

  • Generic requirements which allude to best practices in Applications integration, Extract Transformation Loading & API Management 

  • Requirements around some high level API Calls and its expected behaviour in generic terms 

  • Requirements around System Context, Authentication & Version Management

The following are not in scope:

  • Low level Interface specifications and schema definitions. IM1 interfaces are not built to a standard specification and core system suppliers are currently free to implement in whatever way they see fit, however, suppliers should read the Principles section of the Interoperability Standard and ensure their approach is aligned accordingly. Where applicable they should be able to demonstrate adherence to Principles  

  • Commercial arrangements and charging

  • Assurance and testing

  • Mechanisms to get a Consumer Supplier on board and giving access to test environments 

Generic Integration Requirements

Monitoring & Response Times

This pertains to individual requests and responses for each message interaction and how these are monitored. 

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

im1_resp_001

The Provider Integration Architecture must be capable of monitoring requests received by various Consumers, including the capture of response times required for processing the request within the confines of the Supplier Data Centre / Cloud boundary

Provider

Practice & Patient

MUST

Authentication and End Points 

This refers to how Consumer Systems and Users are authenticated and mechanisms for Consumer systems to access the IM1 interfaces

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

im1_auth_001

The Provider must provide a seamless process to authenticate Consumer systems and Users without any extra overhead or usability issues 

User of a Consumer Solution can refer to a patient in case of Citizen Facing capabilities or refer to a healthcare professional or NHS Staff

Provider

All

MUST

im1_auth_002

The access to Provider Endpoints should not be constrained by existence of a User Session on the Provider Solution

Provider

Practice

should 

im1_auth_003

For the Practice IM1 where feasible, the access to Provider Endpoints should not be constrained by requiring the Consumer integration components to be present within a Practice or within the GP's workstation/PC

Provider

Practice

should 

im1_auth_004

The access to Provider file Extracts must not be constrained by requiring the Consumer integration components to be present within a Practice or within the GP's workstation/PC for the Bulk IM

Provider

Bulk

should

System Context & Invocation 

This refers to the context of the User Session within a Provider Solution and its visibility to the Consumer

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

im1_context_001

The Provider Solution must provide mechanism for Consumer to be kept aware/notified of context information. At the very minimum notification should include

  • user

  • patient 

Note: Providers will notify Consumers of state/context changes; Consumers will not be required to poll or repeatedly call the Provider system to establish if there has been a change

Provider

Practice

should 

im1_context_002

In addition the Provider Solution context information must include, where appropriate (and where subscribed to / requested by Consumer):

  • Complete set of changes (additions, deletions, amendments) to patient demographics where applicable

  • Functional state (e.g. prescribing module selected, add Appointment selected)

  • Data state (e.g. the drug selected, the problem/diagnosis selected) identified uniquely using the appropriate terminology

Provider

Practice

should

im1_context_003

The Provider Solution should have a mechanism to launch the Consumer Solution, in a particular Context, by a User of the Provider Solution- This will be dependent on Consumer Solution providing a suitable link via which the Provider could launch / invoke the Consumer Solution

Provider

Practice

MAY

Appropriate use of integration capability

Ensuring the Provider Solution is not impacted by huge influx of request messages and how it handles such scenarios. 

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

im1_use_001

Provider must be capable of applying appropriate throttling techniques in order to spread the processing load of incoming requests or Extracts processing

Provider

All

MUST

im1_use_002

Provider must be capable of notifying the Consumer of unavailability or delay of request processing (eg. during heavy usage of the Provider System) 

Provider

All

MUST

im1_use_003

If the Consumer supports non user-initiated actions/events that may affect either Provider or Consumer Solution performance then such actions/events must be capable of being scheduled at appropriate times

Consumer

All

MUST

im1_use_004

Where a Provider includes mechanisms to retrieve large sets of data in real time, they must provide guidance on when to use each API call or method- The documentation that describes the supplier's IM1 must also indicate whether the use of any particular Interface Mechanism may adversely affect the performance of the system, e.g. extracting all the clinical data for all patients impedes general system performance and should be run during periods of low usage or when no users are using the system

Provider

Practice & Patient

MUST

im1_use_005

The Consumer must ensure it displays the most up-to date information to its user - Where the information is not up-to date then it should be clearly notified to the User and the User should have visibility of date-time modified for the particular data item 

Consumer

All

MUST

Interface Version Management

It is recognized that suppliers will need to update their interface mechanisms. These requirements ensure version updates are done in a standard manner giving enough notification to Consumers and also providing them the relevant details pertaining to changes. 

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

im1_ver_001

The version of the Interface Mechanism will be available to Consumer systems either via API calls or messages, or provided on request to Provider

Provider

All

MUST

im1_ver_003

Provider implement updates in a manner that supports backward compatibility leaving existing interfaces working. Where an interface has to be retired then relevant requirement applies

Provider

All

MUST

im1_ver_004

Deprecation of interfaces must only be carried out with agreements from Authority and Consumers by providing them with enough advanced notice

Provider

All

MUST

im1_ver_005

Any interface change which would break existing Consumer App needs to be notified beforehand and Consumers should be given the opportunity to test their Solutions against it. 

Provider

All

MUST

im1_ver_006

Any new changes in an interface needs to be very clearly documented such that different between latest version and earlier version is very clear

Provider

All

MUST

im1_ver_007

Consumers of IM1 will be notified of deprecated interfaces and will be given suitable notice in order for their Solution to be migrated away from deprecated interfaces and utilize the latest offering of IM1 from the Provider. Consumers must work to implement the latest version

Consumer

All

MUST

Error & failure handling

How errors in message processing should handled and notified to consumers

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

im1_error_001

Any error condition experienced by the Provider in processing a request needs to be clearly identified, captured and logged - The Consumer should get clear specific information as to what that error was 

Provider

All

MUST

im1_error_002

Error conditions must not result in abrupt disconnection or failure of the overall Provider interface. The provider should gracefully exit when errors occur and return meaningful error messages to the consumer

Provider & Consumer

All

MUST

im1_error_003

Consumer must display the relevant specific error message to the end-user to give them a clear indication as to what went wrong

Consumer

Practice & Patient

MUST

Terminology & Coding Data Sets

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

im1_code_001

Provide a mechanism for a Consumer Supplier to discover versions of any coding schemes used within the Provider Solution (including SNOMED-CT, DM+d, any other standard coding terms)

Provider

Practice and Bulk

MUST

Transaction or Practice Integration

Requirements are listed in terms of API Calls or Methods categorized by GP IT Futures Capabilities. For existing IM1 Providers none of the API calls should be removed unless an equivalent or an uplifted version is provided. 

Patient Information Maintenance 

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

im1_cap_001

Search Patient

Description: The Supplier must provide a mechanism that allows Consumer systems to search for a patient by providing patient demographic data items as search parameters. At the very minimum the Provider should provide search using the following fields used independently or used in combination:  first name, last name, dob, NHS Number and Provider should return the full set of demographics for the matching patient(s)

Provider

Practice

MUST

im1_cap_002

Update Demographics

Description: The Supplier should provide a mechanism for Consumer systems to create a request for amending patient demographics via APIs, which can then be performed by a user of the Provider system

Provider

Practice

should

im1_cap_003

Get Patient Demographics

Provider

Practice

MUST

im1_cap_004

Get Full Medical Record

Provider

Practice

MUST

im1_cap_005

File Data in Patient Record

Provider

Practice

MUST

Appointments Management

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

im1_cap_006

Get Bookable Slots (Appointment) 

Note: This should be met via GP Connect requirements as per Interoperability Standard

Provider

Practice

should

im1_cap_007

Book Appointment

Note: This should be met via GP Connect requirements as per Interoperability Standard

Provider

Practice

should

im1_cap_008

Cancel Appointment

Note: This should be met via GP Connect requirements as per Interoperability Standard

Provider

Practice

should

im1_cap_009

Check in a Patient (on arrival)

Provider

Practice

SHOULD

Consultation Management

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

im1_cap_010

Get Consultation Records for a Patient

Provider

Practice

should

im1_cap_011

Create a new Consultation Record

Provider

Practice

should

im1_cap_012

Add a document or attachment to a Consultation Record

Provider

Practice

should

Documents Management

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

im1_cap_013

File Document into a Patient Record

Provider

Practice

MUST

im1_cap_014

Retrieve Documents for a Patient

Provider

Practice

MUST

Prescribing

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level

ID

Requirement

Consumer or Provider

IM1 Type

Level