Ontario Subscription HL7® FHIR® Implementation Guide -v1.0.0-ballot1
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The Create Subscription interaction creates a subscription to a specified topic, enabling the subscriber to receive notifications when the event occurs.
This interaction involves a request by a Point of Service system to create Subscription on the Subscription server. The request is received by the Subscription service which stores the Subscription resource and returns an HTTP response code and an OperationOutcome resource if applicable.
Subscription Create Request
Client creates and submits a request to the FHIR server to express interest to subscribe for notifications about changes to specific resources. Client use HTTP POST method to submit subscritpion request in the following manner
POST [base]/Subscription HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Content-Type: application/fhir+json
where the HTTP Body contains a FHIR R5 Backport Subscription resource, conformant to Subscription
Request Message:
HTTP Method:
POST
Headers:
Content-Type: application/fhir+json
Address:
[base]/Subscription/
Request message body:
{
"resourceType": "Subscription",
"identifier": [
{
"system": "https://oh-subscriptions.ca/ids",
"value": "emr_subscription-12345_GUID"
}
],
"text": {
"status": "generated",
--- We have skipped the narrative for better readability of the resource ---
},
"status": "active",
"end": "2020-12-31T12:00:00Z",
"reason": "Subsc for Patient Admission",
"extension": [
{
"url": "http://example.org/fhir/StructureDefinition/subscription-managingEntity",
"valueReference": {
"reference": "Organization/123",
"display": "Orion EMR Instance"
}
}
],
"criteria": "http://hl7.org/SubscriptionTopic/admission",
"_criteria": {
"extension": [
{
"url": "http://hl7.org/fhir/uv/subscriptions-backport/StructureDefinition/backport-filter-criteria",
"valueString": "Encounter?patient=Patient/123"
}
]
},
"channel": {
"extension": [
{
"url": "http://hl7.org/fhir/uv/subscriptions-backport/StructureDefinition/backport-heartbeat-period",
"valueUnsignedInt": 86400
},
{
"url": "http://hl7.org/fhir/uv/subscriptions-backport/StructureDefinition/backport-timeout",
"valueUnsignedInt": 60
},
{
"url": "http://hl7.org/fhir/uv/subscriptions-backport/StructureDefinition/backport-max-count",
"valuePositiveInt": 20
}
],
"type": "rest-hook",
"endpoint": "https://example.org/Endpoints/d7dcc004-808d-452b-8030-3a3a13cd871d",
"payload": "application/fhir+json",
"_payload": {
"extension": [
{
"url": "http://hl7.org/fhir/uv/subscriptions-backport/StructureDefinition/backport-payload-content",
"valueCode": "id-only"
}
]
}
}
}
Example Create Subscriptions Response
{
"resourceType": "Subscription",
"id": "f63b8b72-23b4-4c3f-8a07-8fbe93d46f9d",
"meta": {
"versionId": "1",
"lastUpdated": "2025-11-23T14:22:00Z"
},
"status": "active",
"reason": "Notify client when new Patient resources are created",
"criteria": "Patient?status=active",
"channel": {
"type": "rest-hook",
"endpoint": "https://example.org/Endpoints/d7dcc004-808d-452b-8030-3a3a13cd871d",
"payload": "application/fhir+json",
"header": [
"Authorization: Bearer ey123..."
]
}
}
| Profile Name | URL |
|---|---|
| Backport Subscription | R4/B Topic-Based Subscription |
| Case | Scenario Description | HTTP Status Code | Response Payload |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A valid Subscription is submitted, accepted, and created in the repository | HTTP 201 | Created. Returns the created resource. |
| 2 | The subscribtion has been received but is being processed asynchronously | HTTP 202 | Accepted. |
| 3 | The submitted Subscription cannot be validated as it does not conform to the specification | HTTP 400 | Bad Request. Returns an OperationOutcome resource indicating an issue. The client must fix the request and try again. |
| 4 | Subsciprtion API validates the request but cannot return a valid response due to internal issues. | HTTP 500 | Internal Server Error. Returns an OperationOutcome resource indicating an issue. |