A vendor publishing a benchmark that includes their own product is one of the oldest tensions in software procurement, and FHIR is no exception. Health Samurai, the company behind Aidbox, just released an open-source performance benchmark…
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Understanding the FHIR schema deeply pays off for integration engineers. Six concepts to master. Concept 1: Resource model. 140+ resources representing clinical, administrative, financial healthcare concepts. Core resources (Patient, Encounter, Observation, Condition, MedicationRequest, Practitioner) cover 80% of use cases. Concept 2: Data types. Primitives (string, integer, dateTime), complex (HumanName, Address, Quantity), reference types. Concept 3: Extensions. Custom fields via Extension. Each has a canonical URL and StructureDefinition. Concept 4: Profiles. Profiles constrain base resources. US Core is a profile suite. Concept 5: Bundles. Bundle types — transaction (atomic), batch (independent), searchset (query response), collection (grouping). Concept 6: Terminology bindings. Coded…
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Workflow engines for FHIR-based systems have several options in 2026. Understanding the trade-offs shapes architecture decisions. Category 1: General-purpose workflow engines 1. Camunda. BPMN-based, mature. Best fit for clinical workflow diagrams and regulated environments. 2. Temporal. Code-first, event-driven. Best fit for engineering-heavy teams. Category 2: FHIR-native workflow 1. **Medplum bots. Event-driven scripts triggered by FHIR resource changes. 2. Aidbox app SDK.** Sidecar services inside Aidbox platform. Category 3: FHIR Subscription-based 1. **FHIR Subscription as workflow trigger.** Simple event → single-step reaction. Best for straightforward flows. Decision matrix Situation Choice Multi-step clinical workflow, BPMN-friendly Camunda Multi-step engineering-heavy Temporal Simple event-driven, Medplum…