Control access to FHIR resources in the Cloud Healthcare API

This page describes how to use FHIR Consent resources to determine data access of FHIR stores in the Cloud Healthcare API.

To configure a FHIR store with consent enforcement, complete the following steps:

  1. Create a FHIR store if you don't already have one.

  2. Set the following FHIR store's ConsentConfig parameters to enable consent enforcement:

    • version: Specifies which consent enforcement version is being used for the FHIR store. This value can only be set once by either CreateFhirStore or UpdateFhirStore. After it's set, you must call ApplyConsents or ApplyAdminConsents to change the version.

    • access_enforced: If set to true, when accessing FHIR resources, the consent headers provided will be verified against consent directives given by consumers.

    • consent_header_handling: If set to PERMIT_EMPTY_SCOPE (default), the server allows requests without (or empty) X-Consent-Scope header. If set to REQUIRED_ON_READ and access_enforced = true, the server rejects all requests without (or empty) X-Consent-Scope header.

Set up a new FHIR store with ConsentConfig

curl -X POST \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data "{
      'version': 'R4',
      'enableUpdateCreate': true,
      'consentConfig': {
        'version': 'V1',
        'accessEnforced': true
      }
    }" "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores?fhirStoreId=FHIR_STORE_ID"

You should receive a JSON response similar to the following: 

{
  "name": "projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID",
  "version": "R4",
  "enableUpdateCreate": true,
  "consentConfig": {
    "version": "V1"
  }
}

If you have an existing store already, use UpdateFhirStore to set the ConsentConfig with the consent enforcement version as V1 and set accessEnforced to true.

curl -X PATCH \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data "{
      'consentConfig': {
        'version': 'V1',
        'accessEnforced': true
      }
    }" "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID?update_mask=consentConfig"

Policies are represented through Consent resource. The resource fields' purpose and use are described in the Data Model Docs.

Here is an example of all resources that can be created for this particular example.

Create FHIR resources

The following sample shows how to execute a [FHIR bundle](/healthcare-api/docs/how-tos/fhir-bundles) to populate the following resources:

  • A Practitioner resource with name Jeffrey Brown
  • A Patient resource with name Darcy Smith
  • An Observation resource showing hemoglobin measurement of Darcy (LOINC718-7) that was collected by the Happy Hospital
  • An Observation resource showing glucose measurement of Darcy (LOINC15074-8).
  • A Consent from Darcy to permit Jeffrey Brown using application App/123 to access her data collected by the Happy Hospital
  • A Consent from Darcy to permit Jeffrey Brown to access any of her data for emergency treatment (ETREAT)
  • A Consent from the Happy Hospital to permit Jeffrey Brown to access all data when doing biomedical research (BIORCH) with application App/golden

cat > bundle.json << 'EOF'
{
  "resourceType": "Bundle",
  "type": "transaction",
  "entry": [
    {
      "request": {"method": "PUT", "url": "Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833"},
      "resource": {
        "active": true,
        "birthDate": "1970-05-23",
        "gender": "male",
        "id": "12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833",
        "name": [{
            "family": "Brown",
            "given": ["Jeffrey"],
            "use": "official"
        }],
        "resourceType": "Practitioner"
      }
    },
    {
      "request": {"method": "PUT", "url": "Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2"},
      "resource": {
        "active": true,
        "birthDate": "1990-01-01",
        "gender": "female",
        "id": "3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2",
        "name": [{
            "family": "Smith",
            "given": ["Darcy"],
            "use": "official"
        }],
        "meta": {
          "tag": [{
            "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/common-tags",
            "code": "employee"
          }]
        },
        "resourceType": "Patient"
      }
    },
    {
      "request": {"method": "PUT", "url": "Observation/7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa"},
      "resource": {
        "id": "7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa",
        "meta": {"source": "http://example.com/HappyHospital"},
        "code": {
          "coding": [{
            "code": "718-7",
            "system": "http://loinc.org",
            "display": "Hemoglobin [Mass/volume] in Blood"
          }]
        },
        "effectivePeriod": {"start": "2021-12-10T05:30:10+01:00"},
        "issued": "2021-12-10T13:30:10+01:00",
        "resourceType": "Observation",
        "status": "final",
        "subject": {"reference": "Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2"},
        "valueQuantity": {
          "code": "g/dL",
          "system": "http://unitsofmeasure.org",
          "unit": "g/dl",
          "value": 7.2
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "request": {"method": "PUT", "url": "Observation/68583624-9921-4158-8754-2a306c689abd"},
      "resource": {
        "id": "68583624-9921-4158-8754-2a306c689abd",
        "code": {
          "coding": [{
            "code": "15074-8",
            "system": "http://loinc.org",
            "display": "Glucose [Moles/volume] in Blood"
          }]
        },
        "effectivePeriod": {"start": "2021-12-01T05:30:10+01:00"},
        "issued": "2021-12-01T13:30:10+01:00",
        "resourceType": "Observation",
        "status": "final",
        "subject": {"reference": "Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2"},
        "valueQuantity": {
          "code": "mmol/L",
          "system": "http://unitsofmeasure.org",
          "unit": "mmol/l",
          "value": 6.3
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "request": {"method": "PUT", "url": "Consent/10998b60-a252-405f-aa47-0702554ddc8e"},
      "resource": {
        "category": [{
          "coding": [{
            "code": "59284-0",
            "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/consentcategorycodes"
          }]
        }],
        "id": "10998b60-a252-405f-aa47-0702554ddc8e",
        "patient": {"reference": "Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2"},
        "policyRule": {
          "coding": [{
            "code": "OPTIN",
            "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActCode"
          }]
        },
        "provision": {
          "actor": [
            {
              "reference": {"reference": "Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833"},
              "role": {
                "coding": [{
                  "code": "GRANTEE",
                  "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-RoleCode"
                }]
              }
            }
          ],
          "extension": [
            {
              "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/Environment",
              "valueCodeableConcept": {
                "coding": [{
                  "code": "123",
                  "system": "App"
                }]
              }
            },
            {
              "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataSource",
              "valueUri": "http://example.com/HappyHospital"
            }
          ],
          "type": "permit"
        },
        "resourceType": "Consent",
        "scope": {
          "coding": [{
            "code": "patient-privacy",
            "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/consentscope"
          }]
        },
        "status": "active"
      }
    },
    {
      "request": {"method": "PUT", "url": "Consent/73c54e8d-2789-403b-9dee-13085c5d5e34"},
      "resource": {
        "category": [{
          "coding": [{
            "code": "59284-0",
            "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/consentcategorycodes"
          }]
        }],
        "id": "73c54e8d-2789-403b-9dee-13085c5d5e34",
        "patient": {"reference": "Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2"},
        "policyRule": {
          "coding": [{
            "code": "OPTIN",
            "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActCode"
          }]
        },
        "provision": {
          "actor": [
            {
              "reference": {"reference": "Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833"},
              "role": {
                "coding": [{
                  "code": "GRANTEE",
                  "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-RoleCode"
                }]
              }
            }
          ],
          "purpose": [{
            "code": "ETREAT",
            "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActReason"
          }],
          "type": "permit"
        },
        "resourceType": "Consent",
        "scope": {
          "coding": [{
            "code": "patient-privacy",
            "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/consentscope"
          }]
        },
        "status": "active"
      }
    },
    {
      "request": {"method": "PUT", "url": "Consent/5c8e3f8a-9fd5-480d-a08e-f29b89feccde"},
      "resource": {
        "category": [{
          "coding": [{
            "code": "57017-6",
            "system": "http://loinc.org"
          }]
        }],
        "id": "5c8e3f8a-9fd5-480d-a08e-f29b89feccde",
        "patient": {},
        "extension": [{
          "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/ConsentAdminPolicy"
        }],
        "policyRule": {
          "coding": [{
            "code": "OPTIN",
            "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActCode"
          }]
        },
        "provision": {
          "actor": [
            {
              "reference": {"reference": "Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833"},
              "role": {
                "coding": [{
                  "code": "GRANTEE",
                  "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-RoleCode"
                }]
              }
            }
          ],
          "purpose": [{
            "code": "BIORCH",
            "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActReason"
          }],
          "extension": [
            {
              "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/Environment",
              "valueCodeableConcept": {
                "coding": [{
                  "code": "golden",
                  "system": "App"
                }]
              }
            }
          ],
          "type": "permit"
        },
        "resourceType": "Consent",
        "scope": {},
        "status": "active"
      }
    }
  ]
}
EOF
curl -X POST \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/fhir+json; charset=utf-8" \
    --data @bundle.json \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir"

You should receive a JSON response similar to the following: 

{
  "entry": [
    {
      "response": {
        "etag": "W/\"VERSION_ID\"",
        "lastModified": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
        "location": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833/_history/VERSION_ID",
        "status": "201 Created"
      }
    },
    {
      "response": {
        "etag": "W/\"VERSION_ID\"",
        "lastModified": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
        "location": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2/_history/VERSION_ID",
        "status": "201 Created"
      }
    },
    {
      "response": {
        "etag": "W/\"VERSION_ID\"",
        "lastModified": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
        "location": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa/_history/VERSION_ID",
        "status": "201 Created"
      }
    },
    {
      "response": {
        "etag": "W/\"VERSION_ID\"",
        "lastModified": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
        "location": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/68583624-9921-4158-8754-2a306c689abd/_history/VERSION_ID",
        "status": "201 Created"
      }
    },
    {
      "response": {
        "etag": "W/\"VERSION_ID\"",
        "lastModified": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
        "location": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Consent/10998b60-a252-405f-aa47-0702554ddc8e/_history/VERSION_ID",
        "status": "201 Created"
      }
    },
    {
      "response": {
        "etag": "W/\"VERSION_ID\"",
        "lastModified": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
        "location": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Consent/73c54e8d-2789-403b-9dee-13085c5d5e34/_history/VERSION_ID",
        "status": "201 Created"
      }
    },
    {
      "response": {
        "etag": "W/\"VERSION_ID\"",
        "lastModified": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
        "location": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Consent/5c8e3f8a-9fd5-480d-a08e-f29b89feccde/_history/VERSION_ID",
        "status": "201 Created"
      }
    }
  ],
  "resourceType": "Bundle",
  "type": "transaction-response"
}

Following are more examples of R4 Consent resource that demonstrates how complex policies can be represented.

{
  "resourceType": "Consent",
  "id": "patient-consent-example",
  "patient": {
    "reference": "Patient/f001"
  },
  "category": [
    {
      "coding": [
        {
          "system": "http://loinc.org",
          "code": "59284-0"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "scope": {
    "coding": [
      {
        "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/consentscope",
        "code": "patient-privacy"
      }
    ]
  },
  "policyRule": {
    "coding": [
      {
        "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActCode",
        "code": "OPTIN"
      }
    ]
  },
  "status": "active",
  "provision": {
    "type": "permit",
    "actor": [
      {
        "reference": {
          "reference": "Practitioner/f002"
        },
        "role": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-RoleCode",
              "code": "GRANTEE"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    ],
    "purpose": [
      {
        "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActReason",
        "code": "TREAT"
      }
    ],
    "class": [
      {
        "system": "http://hl7.org/fhir/resource-types",
        "code": "Encounter"
      }
    ],
    "data": [
      {
        "meaning": "instance",
        "reference": {
          "reference": "Encounter/e001"
        }
      }
    ],
    "extension": [
      {
        "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/Environment",
        "valueCodeableConcept": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "system": "iso3166-1",
              "code": "CA"
            }
          ]
        }
      },
      {
        "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataTag",
        "valueCoding": {
          "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/common-tags",
          "code": "actionable"
        }
      },
      {
        "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataTag",
        "extension": [
          {
            "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataTag",
            "valueCoding": {
              "system": "http://example.com/custom-tags",
              "code": "archived"
            }
          },
          {
            "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataTag",
            "valueCoding": {
              "system": "http://example.com/custom-tags",
              "code": "insensitive"
            }
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataSource",
        "valueUri": "http://somesystem.example.org/foo"
      }
    ],
    "securityLabel": [
      {
        "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-Confidentiality",
        "code": "R"
      },
      {
        "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActCode",
        "code": "PSY"
      }
    ]
  }
}

The preceding example represents a patient Consent resource in which a patient f001 gives permission to a practitioner f002 with the purpose of providing regular treatment represented by TREAT. The practitioner is from the geolocation iso3166-1/CA. This Consent resource permits the practitioner to access the patient data if the data satisfies all of the following conditions.

  • It is an Encounter type with the ID Encounter/e001.
  • It comes from the source http://somesystem.example.org/foo.
  • It satisfies at least one of the following conditions on tag (resources can be tagged by setting Meta.tags' system and code field):
    • Has the tag (system = http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/common-tags and code = actionable)
    • Has both tags (system = http://example.com/custom-tags and code = archived) and (system = http://example.com/custom-tags and code = insensitive)
  • It has at least one of the following security labels
    • system = http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-Confidentiality and code is one of R, N, M, L, U.
    • system = http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActCode and code = PSY.

Sample admin policy directive

{
  "resourceType": "Consent",
  "id": "admin-policy-example",
  "patient": {},
  "extension": [{
    "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/ConsentAdminPolicy"
  }],
  "category": [
    {
      "coding": [
        {
          "system": "http://loinc.org",
          "code": "57017-6"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "scope": {},
  "policyRule": {
    "coding": [
      {
        "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActCode",
        "code": "OPTIN"
      }
    ]
  },
  "status": "active",
  "provision": {
    "type": "permit",
    "actor": [
      {
        "reference": {
          "reference": "Practitioner/f002"
        },
        "role": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-RoleCode",
              "code": "GRANTEE"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    ],
    "purpose": [
      {
        "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActReason",
        "code": "TREAT"
      }
    ],
    "class": [
      {
        "system": "http://hl7.org/fhir/resource-types",
        "code": "Encounter"
      }
    ],
    "data": [
      {
        "meaning": "instance",
        "reference": {
          "reference": "Encounter/e001"
        }
      }
    ],
    "extension": [
      {
        "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/Environment",
        "valueCodeableConcept": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "system": "iso3166-1",
              "code": "CA"
            }
          ]
        }
      },
      {
        "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataTag",
        "valueCoding": {
          "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/common-tags",
          "code": "actionable"
        }
      },
      {
        "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataTag",
        "extension": [
          {
            "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataTag",
            "valueCoding": {
              "system": "http://example.com/custom-tags",
              "code": "archived"
            }
          },
          {
            "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataTag",
            "valueCoding": {
              "system": "http://example.com/custom-tags",
              "code": "insensitive"
            }
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataSource",
        "valueUri": "http://somesystem.example.org/foo"
      }
    ],
    "securityLabel": [
      {
        "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-Confidentiality",
        "code": "R"
      },
      {
        "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActCode",
        "code": "PSY"
      }
    ]
  }
}

The preceding example represents an admin policy Consent resource gives permission to a practitioner f002 with the purpose of providing regular treatment represented by TREAT. The practitioner is from the geolocation iso3166-1/CA. This Consent resource permits the practitioner to access the patient data if the data satisfies all of the following conditions:

  • It is an Encounter type with the ID Encounter/e001.
  • It comes from the source http://somesystem.example.org/foo.
  • It satisfies at least one of the following conditions on tag:
    • Has the tag (system = http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/common-tags and code = actionable)
    • Has both tags (system = http://example.com/custom-tags and code = archived) and (system = http://example.com/custom-tags and code = insensitive)
  • It has at least one of the following security labels
    • system = http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-Confidentiality and code is one of R, N, M, L, U.
    • system = http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActCode and code = PSY.

Sample admin cascading policy directive

{
  "resourceType": "Consent",
  "id": "admin-cascading-policy-example",
  "patient": {},
  "extension": [
    { "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/ConsentAdminPolicy" },
    { "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/CascadingPolicy" }
  ],
  "category": [
    {
      "coding": [
        {
          "system": "http://loinc.org",
          "code": "57017-6"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "scope": {},
  "policyRule": {
    "coding": [
      {
        "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActCode",
        "code": "OPTIN"
      }
    ]
  },
  "status": "active",
  "provision": {
    "type": "permit",
    "actor": [
      {
        "reference": {
          "reference": "Practitioner/f002"
        },
        "role": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-RoleCode",
              "code": "GRANTEE"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    ],
    "purpose": [
      {
        "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActReason",
        "code": "TREAT"
      }
    ],
    "class": [
      {
        "system": "http://hl7.org/fhir/resource-types",
        "code": "Patient"
      }
    ],
    "extension": [
      {
        "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/Environment",
        "valueCodeableConcept": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "system": "iso3166-1",
              "code": "CA"
            }
          ]
        }
      },
      {
        "url": "https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataTag",
        "valueCoding": {
          "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/common-tags",
          "code": "employee"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

The preceding example represents an admin cascading policy Consent resource giving permission to a practitioner f002 with the purpose of providing regular treatment represented by TREAT. The practitioner is from the geolocation iso3166-1/CA. This Consent resource permits the practitioner to access the compartment data of patients with tag employee. All resource criteria only applies to the compartment base resources, meaning the Patient resource, as it controls which resources to cascade from.

Enforce patient consents or admin policies

Enforce the patient's consents by ApplyConsents

curl -X POST \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data "{'validateOnly': false}" \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID:applyConsents"

You should receive a JSON response similar to the following: 

{
  "name": "projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/operations/OPERATION_ID"
}

The response contains an operation name. To track the status of the operation, you can use the [Operation `get` method](/healthcare-api/docs/reference/rest/v1/projects.locations.datasets.operations/get): 

curl -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/operations/OPERATION_ID"

When the operation finishes, the server returns a response with the status of the operation in JSON format: 

{
  "name": "projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/operations/OPERATION_ID"",
  "metadata": {
    "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.cloud.healthcare.v1beta1.OperationMetadata",
    "apiMethodName": "google.cloud.healthcare.v1beta1.fhir.FhirStoreService.ApplyConsents",
    "createTime": "CREATE_TIME",
    "endTime": "END_TIME",
    "logsUrl": "https://console.cloud.google.com/logs/query/CLOUD_LOGGING_URL",
    "counter": {
      "success": "2",
      "secondarySuccess": "5"
    }
  },
  "done": true,
  "response": {
    "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.cloud.healthcare.v1beta1.fhir.ApplyConsentsResponse",
    "consentApplySuccess": "2",
    "affectedResources": "5"
  }
}

This response indicated that the server successfully processed 2 consents and updated the consensual access of 5 resources (1 Patient, 2 Consents, 2 Observations).

Enforce the admin policy by ApplyAdminConsents

curl -X POST \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data "{
      'validateOnly': false,
      'newConsentsList': {
        'names': ['projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Consent/5c8e3f8a-9fd5-480d-a08e-f29b89feccde/_history/VERSION_ID']
      }
    }" \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID:applyAdminConsents"

You should receive a JSON response similar to the following: 

{
  "name": "projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/operations/OPERATION_ID"
}

The response contains an operation name. To track the status of the operation, you can use the [Operation `get` method](/healthcare-api/docs/reference/rest/v1/projects.locations.datasets.operations/get): 

curl -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/operations/OPERATION_ID"

When the operation finishes, the server returns a response with the status of the operation in JSON format: 

{
  "name": "projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/operations/OPERATION_ID"",
  "metadata": {
    "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.cloud.healthcare.v1beta1.OperationMetadata",
    "apiMethodName": "google.cloud.healthcare.v1beta1.fhir.FhirStoreService.ApplyAdminConsents",
    "createTime": "CREATE_TIME",
    "endTime": "END_TIME",
    "logsUrl": "https://console.cloud.google.com/logs/query/CLOUD_LOGGING_URL",
    "counter": {
      "success": "1",
      "secondarySuccess": "7"
    }
  },
  "done": true,
  "response": {
    "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.cloud.healthcare.v1beta1.fhir.ApplyAdminConsentsResponse",
    "consentApplySuccess": "1",
    "affectedResources": "7"
  }
}

This response indicated that the server successfully processed 1 admin policy and updated the consensual access of 7 resources (1 Practitioner, 1 Patient, 2 Observations, 2 patient Consents and 1 admin policy).

Enforcement on consents stored within a FHIR store won't come into effect until ApplyConsents (for patient consents) or ApplyAdminConsents (for admin policies and admin cascading policies) is called and completes successfully. If you add, modify, or remove consents after you have run ApplyConsents or ApplyAdminConsents, you must run it again for those consents to be included in the enforcement model.

FHIR resources are indexed asynchronously, so there might be a slight delay between the time when ApplyConsents or ApplyAdminConsents completes and when the enforcement model is reflected in search results. This delay is only expected for search requests.

If this is the first time you're setting up consent enforcement on the FHIR store, wait for the ApplyConsents or ApplyAdminConsents long-running operation to complete before making consent-aware requests.

To call ApplyConsents on a subset of patients, you can use the following filters:

  • PatientScope: to run ApplyConsents on a list of patient IDs with up to 10,000 patients

  • TimeRange: to run ApplyConsent on a list of Patient resource IDs whose Consent resources are updated during a certain time range

To call ApplyAdminConsents: you need to provide the full list of all policies that you want to apply (not an incremental list). As a result, an empty list will void enforcement from all admin policies from the store. Each policy must be a resource version name if the FHIR store is versioning, and a resource name otherwise.

You can use operations.get to retrieve the ProgressCounter of the operation. Upon completion there is an ApplyConsentsResponse which is included in the Operation.response. The counters in the ProgressCounter and ApplyConsentsResponse or ApplyAdminConsentsResponse are described in the following table.

ProgressCounter ApplyConsentsResponse or ApplyAdminConsentsResponse Description
success consentApplySuccess The number of Consent resources that the operation successfully processed.
failure consentApplyFailure The number of Consent resources that are unsupported or invalid. You can either view error logs in Cloud Logging or when validateOnly is false, check consent enforcement status using CheckConsentEnforcementStatus or CheckPatientConsentEnforcementStatus to retrieve error details.
secondarySuccess affectedResources When validateOnly is false, it represents the number of FHIR resources that were successfully re-indexed because of the effect of the consent change.
secondaryFailure failedResources When validateOnly is false, it represents the number of FHIR resources that may have consent change but failed to reindex. This may affect search with consent context but not other methods. To see the error details, you can view error logs in Cloud Logging.

When FHIR Consent resources are processed, you can use the following APIs to check the status of enforcement for a single consent or all consents from a patient:

For admin policy, CheckConsentEnforcementStatus can only be used for checking the enforcement status of a single Consent admin policy. Alternatively, you can use fhirStores.get to see all the active admin policies applied to the store.

The consent-enforcement-status can have any of the following values:

  • OFF: represents the default enforcement status of a new Consent resource in which the Consent resource has never been processed.

  • ENFORCEABLE: the state in which the Consent resource has been processed successfully.

  • INACTIVE: an inactive state in which the Consent resource is ignored.

  • UNSUPPORTED: the state of a Consent resource that may conform to FHIR specifications, but is unenforceable. This is due to limited implementation of the FHIR consent enforcement with the current level of feature support.

  • ENFORCEMENT_LIMIT_EXCEEDED: the state when the FHIR consent resource format and the level of support for the resource are error-free, however one or more of the following conditions are true:

    • The Patient has a large set of Consent resources.

    • The size of the consent directives across all active consents is greater than the maximum allowed size of the consent directives for a FHIR server to enforce them.

The Cloud Healthcare API supports searches for FHIR resources in a given FHIR store with actor, purpose, and environment as query parameters. The response contains only those resources that are consented.

  1. Practitioner Jeffrey Brown (identified by Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833) using a trusted application App/123 searches all Observations with status=final.
    2. curl -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "X-Consent-Scope: actor/Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833 env/App/123" \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation?status=final"

    You should receive a JSON response similar to the following: 

    {
  "entry": [
    {
      "fullUrl": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION_ID/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa",
      "resource": {
        "code": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "code": "718-7",
              "display": "Hemoglobin [Mass/volume] in Blood",
              "system": "http://loinc.org"
            }
          ]
        },
        "effectivePeriod": {
          "start": "2021-12-10T05:30:10+01:00"
        },
        "id": "7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa",
        "issued": "2021-12-10T13:30:10+01:00",
        "meta": {
          "lastUpdated": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
          "source": "http://example.com/HappyHospital",
          "versionId": "VERSION_ID"
        },
        "resourceType": "Observation",
        "status": "final",
        "subject": {
          "reference": "Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2"
        },
        "valueQuantity": {
          "code": "g/dL",
          "system": "http://unitsofmeasure.org",
          "unit": "g/dl",
          "value": 7.2
        }
      },
      "search": {
        "mode": "match"
      }
    }
  ],
  "link": [
    {
      "relation": "search",
      "url": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/?status=final"
    },
    {
      "relation": "first",
      "url": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/?status=final"
    },
    {
      "relation": "self",
      "url": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/?status=final"
    }
  ],
  "resourceType": "Bundle",
  "total": 1,
  "type": "searchset"
}
  2. Practitioner Jeffrey Brown (identified by Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833) using application App/123 searches all Observations from Patient Darcy.
    3. curl -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "X-Consent-Scope: actor/Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833 env/App/123" \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation?subject:Patient.name=Darcy"

    You should receive a JSON response similar to the following: 

    {
  "link": [
    {
      "relation": "search",
      "url": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/?subject%3APatient.name=Darcy"
    },
    {
      "relation": "first",
      "url": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/?subject%3APatient.name=Darcy"
    },
    {
      "relation": "self",
      "url": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/?subject%3APatient.name=Darcy"
    }
  ],
  "resourceType": "Bundle",
  "total": 0,
  "type": "searchset"
}

    The preceding query is a chained search. Because the consent scenario actor/Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833 env/App/123 is denied access for the Patient Darcy resource (identified by Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2), the FHIR server returns no Observation from the Patient as if the Patient does not exist.

  3. Practitioner Jeffrey Brown (identified by Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833) using application App/123 searches all Observations from Patient Darcy for emergency treatment purposes.
    4. curl -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "X-Consent-Scope: actor/Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833 purp/v3/ETREAT env/App/123" \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation?subject:Patient.name=Darcy"

    You should receive a JSON response similar to the following: 

    {
  "entry": [
    {
      "fullUrl": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/68583624-9921-4158-8754-2a306c689abd",
      "resource": {
        "code": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "code": "15074-8",
              "display": "Glucose [Moles/volume] in Blood",
              "system": "http://loinc.org"
            }
          ]
        },
        "effectivePeriod": {
          "start": "2021-12-01T05:30:10+01:00"
        },
        "id": "68583624-9921-4158-8754-2a306c689abd",
        "issued": "2021-12-01T13:30:10+01:00",
        "meta": {
          "lastUpdated": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
          "versionId": "VERSION_ID"
        },
        "resourceType": "Observation",
        "status": "final",
        "subject": {
          "reference": "Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2"
        },
        "valueQuantity": {
          "code": "mmol/L",
          "system": "http://unitsofmeasure.org",
          "unit": "mmol/l",
          "value": 6.3
        }
      },
      "search": {
        "mode": "match"
      }
    },
    {
      "fullUrl": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa",
      "resource": {
        "code": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "code": "718-7",
              "display": "Hemoglobin [Mass/volume] in Blood",
              "system": "http://loinc.org"
            }
          ]
        },
        "effectivePeriod": {
          "start": "2021-12-10T05:30:10+01:00"
        },
        "id": "7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa",
        "issued": "2021-12-10T13:30:10+01:00",
        "meta": {
          "lastUpdated": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
          "source": "http://example.com/HappyHospital",
          "versionId": "VERSION_ID"
        },
        "resourceType": "Observation",
        "status": "final",
        "subject": {
          "reference": "Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2"
        },
        "valueQuantity": {
          "code": "g/dL",
          "system": "http://unitsofmeasure.org",
          "unit": "g/dl",
          "value": 7.2
        }
      },
      "search": {
        "mode": "match"
      }
    }
  ],
  "link": [
    {
      "relation": "search",
      "url": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/?subject:Patient.name=Darcy"
    },
    {
      "relation": "first",
      "url": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/?subject:Patient.name=Darcy"
    },
    {
      "relation": "self",
      "url": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/?subject:Patient.name=Darcy"
    }
  ],
  "resourceType": "Bundle",
  "total": 2,
  "type": "searchset"
}
  4. Practitioner Jeffrey Brown (identified by Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833) searches Observations with status=final for two purposes, treatment and research
    5. curl -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "X-Consent-Scope: actor/Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833 purp/v3/TREAT purp/v3/HRESCH" \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation?status=final"

    You should receive a JSON response similar to the following: 

    {
  "issue": [
    {
      "code": "security",
      "details": {
        "text": "permission_denied"
      },
      "diagnostics": "the maximum number of allowed consent purpose scopes is 1, got 2",
      "severity": "error"
    }
  ],
  "resourceType": "OperationOutcome"
}

    In this case, Practitioner Jeffrey Brown should remove an unnecessary purpose from the `X-Consent-Scope` in the request.

  5. A hospital IT administrator uses bypass to search for all Practitioners at the hospital.
    6. curl -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "X-Consent-Scope: bypass actor/Admin/ef0592c9-6724-467e-878d-f879e537cd15 env/net/HappyNet" \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Practitioner?"

    Because bypass is provided, the consent checks were skipped. You should receive a JSON response similar to the following: 

    {
  "entry": [
    {
      "fullUrl": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833",
      "resource": {
        "active": true,
        "birthDate": "1970-05-23",
        "gender": "male",
        "id": "12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833",
        "meta": {
          "lastUpdated": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
          "versionId": "VERSION_ID"
        },
        "name": [
          {
            "family": "Brown",
            "given": [
              "Jeffrey"
            ],
            "use": "official"
          }
        ],
        "resourceType": "Practitioner"
      },
      "search": {
        "mode": "match"
      }
    }
  ],
  "link": [
    {
      "relation": "search",
      "url": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Practitioner/?"
    },
    {
      "relation": "first",
      "url": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Practitioner/?"
    },
    {
      "relation": "self",
      "url": "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Practitioner/?"
    }
  ],
  "resourceType": "Bundle",
  "total": 1,
  "type": "searchset"
}

The Cloud Healthcare API supports get FHIR resource in a given FHIR store with actor, purpose, and environment as query parameters. The response contains only those resources that are consented.

  1. Practitioner Jeffrey Brown (identified by Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833) using application App/123 reads the hemoglobin measurement of the Patient (in this example, Observation/7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa).
    2. curl -X GET \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "X-Consent-Scope: actor/Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833 env/App/123" \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa"

    Because the requestor was given consent, the response is the content of the Observation resource. 

    {
  "code": {
    "coding": [
      {
        "code": "718-7",
        "display": "Hemoglobin [Mass/volume] in Blood",
        "system": "http://loinc.org"
      }
    ]
  },
  "effectivePeriod": {
    "start": "2021-12-10T05:30:10+01:00"
  },
  "id": "7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa",
  "issued": "2021-12-10T13:30:10+01:00",
  "meta": {
    "lastUpdated": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
    "source": "http://example.com/HappyHospital",
    "versionId": "VERSION_ID"
  },
  "resourceType": "Observation",
  "status": "final",
  "subject": {
    "reference": "Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2"
  },
  "valueQuantity": {
    "code": "g/dL",
    "system": "http://unitsofmeasure.org",
    "unit": "g/dl",
    "value": 7.2
  }
}
  2. Practitioner Jeffrey Brown (identified by Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833) using unknown application App/unknown reads the hemoglobin measurement of the Patient (in this example, Observation/7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa).
    3. curl -X GET \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
  -H "X-Consent-Scope: actor/Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833 env/App/unknown" \
  "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa"

    Because the boundary access of the requestor (`App/unknown`) is not permitted by the Patient's consent, the request is denied. 

    {
  "issue": [
    {
      "code": "security",
      "details": {
        "text": "permission_denied"
      },
      "diagnostics": "Consent access denied or the resource being accessed does not exist",
      "severity": "error"
    }
  ],
  "resourceType": "OperationOutcome"
}
  3. Practitioner Jeffrey Brown (identified by Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833) doing biomedical research using application App/golden reads the Darcy's birthDate (in this example, Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2).
    4. curl -X GET \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
  -H "X-Consent-Scope: actor/Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833 purp/v3/BIORCH env/App/golden" \
  "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2"

    Because the requestor was given consent, the response is the content of the Patient resource. 

    {
  "active": true,
  "birthDate": "1990-01-01",
  "gender": "female",
  "id": "3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2",
  "meta": {
    "lastUpdated": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
    "versionId": "VERSION_ID",
    "tag": [{
      "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/common-tags",
      "code": "employee"
    }]
  },
  "name": [
    {
      "family": "Smith",
      "given": [
        "Darcy"
      ],
      "use": "official"
    }
  ],
  "resourceType": "Patient"
}
  4. Practitioner Jeffrey Brown (identified by Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833) requests emergency unauthorized access to a patient's record, using the "break-the-glass" protocol. (in this example, Observation/7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa).
    5. curl -X GET \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
  -H "X-Consent-Scope: btg actor/Practitioner/12942879-f89f-41ae-aa80-0b911b649833" \
  "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Observation/7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa"

    Because the consent's authorization method is btg, the server skips consent checks. The response is the content of the Observation resource. 

    {
  "code": {
    "coding": [
      {
        "code": "718-7",
        "display": "Hemoglobin [Mass/volume] in Blood",
        "system": "http://loinc.org"
      }
    ]
  },
  "effectivePeriod": {
    "start": "2021-12-10T05:30:10+01:00"
  },
  "id": "7473784b-46a8-470c-b9a6-fe38a01025aa",
  "issued": "2021-12-10T13:30:10+01:00",
  "meta": {
    "lastUpdated": "2022-09-01T17:31:40.423469+00:00",
    "source": "http://example.com/HappyHospital",
    "versionId": "VERSION_ID"
  },
  "resourceType": "Observation",
  "status": "final",
  "subject": {
    "reference": "Patient/3c6aa096-c054-4c22-b2b4-1e4a4d203de2"
  },
  "valueQuantity": {
    "code": "g/dL",
    "system": "http://unitsofmeasure.org",
    "unit": "g/dl",
    "value": 7.2
  }
}

The following sections describe the supported consent enforcement methods in the Cloud Healthcare API and how resource access is enforced when you make a consent-aware request.

When making a request, your authorization server is responsible for generating access tokens with the relevant consent scope.

Set HTTP header

Consent scopes are passed to the Cloud Healthcare API using the X-Consent-Scope HTTP header. The Cloud Healthcare API uses this header to enforce consent-based access control on data in FHIR stores.

A FHIR request can support limited number of consent entry scopes. Up to three entries of actor, one of purp, and one of env can be included in a given FHIR request.

For special scopes, a FHIR request can support one of btg, or bypass.

Set HTTP headers for trusted applications

This section is only required if you're using a customer-controlled authorization server. In this instance, you must also use a SMARTproxy or similar proxy.

Some trusted applications may make calls directly to the Cloud Healthcare API with the consent scopes in the specified HTTP header. This enables direct consent enforcement without the need for a SMARTproxy or another proxy to convert between external authorization servers and Google Cloud.

For example, your application might be registered for a subset of scopes, such as an application environment scope, or the application might present a selection widget to set some scope entries such as the accessor's purpose.

A trusted user or a trusted application could also use the btg or the bypass scope entries, which are subject to post-audit reviews.

The Cloud Healthcare API provides built-in support for FHIR Consent enforcement based on the input consent scopes. FHIR store administrators are responsible for creating and configuring an authorization server outside of the Cloud Healthcare API that grants consent scopes.

Sample access token

The following sample shows an access token encoded in base64:

eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzM4NCJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJjb25zZW50LnRva2VuLm9yZyIsImlhdCI6MTYxMjg4NDA4NSwiZXhwIjoxNjQ0NDIwMDg1LCJhdWQiOiJ3d3cuZXhhbXBsZS5jb20iLCJzdWIiOiJkb2N0b3IuZ2FicmllbGFAZXhhbXBsZS5jb20iLCJzY29wZSI6Im9pZGMgYWN0b3IvUHJhY3RpdGlvbmVyLzEyMyBhY3Rvci9Hcm91cC85OTkgcHVycC92My9UUkVBVCBlbnYvQXBwL2FiYyJ9.fC7ljkVUUx8fwUOrJuONcrqA-WKC-k_Bclzlgds0Cq6H_gEe3nUjPlSOCTQsIdYB

After decoding the access token, you can see that it contains the following payload:

{
  "iss": "consent.token.org",
  "iat": 1612884085,
  "exp": 1644420085,
  "aud": "www.example.com",
  "sub": "doctor.gabriela@example.com",
  "scope": "oidc actor/Practitioner/123 actor/Group/999 purp/v3/TREAT env/App/abc"
}

Configure SMARTProxy

SMARTProxy is an open source proxy from Google that provides the following features:

  • Allows the Cloud Healthcare API FHIR server to accept and validate consent-aware access tokens.

  • Allows the FHIR implementation in the Cloud Healthcare API to include consent-aware access tokens as part of the Cloud Healthcare API management and permission model.

  • Supports token features for SMART on FHIR support as well.

When you make a request to retrieve data from the Cloud Healthcare API through SMARTProxy, the following occurs:

  1. SMARTProxy accepts a request from a client containing a consent-aware token.

  2. SMARTProxy validates the consent-aware token through a JWT authorization server that you own.

  3. SMARTProxy reads the scopes from the consent-aware token and passes them to the Cloud Healthcare API through the HTTP header.

  4. The Cloud Healthcare API receives the headers and validates them to enforce consent directives on the request. The Cloud Healthcare API then returns a response through the SMARTProxy to the client.

Configure a Google Cloud service account

A proxy can only have a single Google Cloud service account. If multiple clients use the same proxy, then the clients will use the same service account. Use caution when sharing a service account with multiple clients for the following reasons:

For example, if you call the Cloud Healthcare API directly using your Google Account for authentication, then Cloud Audit Logs logs your email address as the principal email address. When you use a proxy to call the Cloud Healthcare API, the proxy uses its own service account and the principal email address is the service account's email address and the original account is not defined.

Audit logs

Audit logs are generated when there is an access request or when the resources' access enforcement changes.

Access audit logs

If audit logs are enabled on the FHIR store, then a consentMode metadata field is included in the audit logs available in Cloud Logging. The consentMode may have one of the following values:

  • off: the FHIR store configuration has consentConfig.accessEnforced set to false and does not allow consent-aware requests.

  • emptyScope: the FHIR store has consentConfig.accessEnforced set to true but a consent scope header was not included. As a result, consents were not enforced.

  • enforced: the FHIR store has consentConfig.accessEnforced set to true and the consent scope header was present. As a result, consents were evaluated and enforced on the request.

  • btg: the FHIR request had btg provided in the consent scope header. As a result, consent checks were skipped. This request is intended to be used for emergencies and subject to post-audit review only.

  • bypass: the FHIR request had only bypass provided in the consent scope header. As a result, consent checks were skipped. This request is intended to be used by a trusted workflow (such as an administrator or a trusted application instead of end-users) so that this audit log is different from the btg, which is used for data governance checks.

Optionally, you may set access_determination_log_config to VERBOSE to record more information about why a request is granted or denied.

Access enforcement change audit logs

When the compartment base resource changes (for example, removing a patient's employee tag): The access control on the changed resource and its compartment may change due to Admin Cascading Policy. It will trigger reindexing on all of its compartment resources. The reindex progress for each compartment base resource update can be tracked in Cloud Logging with the filter jsonPayload.@type="type.googleapis.com/google.cloud.healthcare.logging.FhirConsentCascadeLogEntry".

Sample cascade reindex progress log

{
  "insertId": "tz2gtza8",
  "jsonPayload": {
    "@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.cloud.healthcare.logging.FhirConsentCascadeLogEntry",
    "state": "STATE_FINISHED",
    "affectedResources": "2",
    "lastUpdated": "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS+ZZ:ZZ",
    "compartmentBaseResourceName": "projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Patient/PATIENT_RESOURCE_ID/_history/PATIENT_RESOURCE_VERSION"
  },
  "resource": {
    "type": "healthcare_fhir_store",
    "labels": {
      "location": "LOCATION",
      "dataset_id": "DATASET_ID",
      "fhir_store_id": "FHIR_STORE_ID",
      "project_id": "PROJECT_ID"
    }
  },
  "timestamp": "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS+ZZ:ZZ",
  "severity": "INFO",
  "logName": "projects/PROJECT_ID/logs/healthcare.googleapis.com%2Fconsent_cascading_fhir",
  "receiveTimestamp": "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS+ZZ:ZZ"
}

jsonPayload.state is the state of the reindex operation, jsonPayload.affectedResources is the number of reindexed compartment resources, and jsonPayload.lastUpdated is the timestamp of patient resource update. If the operation just started, then jsonPayload.state="STATE_STARTED", and jsonPayload.affectedResources won't be present.

Constraints and limitations

This section shows the constraints and limits for FHIR R4, but the same constraints and limits apply to FHIR STU3.

Type Constraints and limits
Single Consent resource
  • Only a single Consent.provision is supported, multiple provisions or nested provision are unsupported.
  • At least 1 Consent.provision.actor, at most 25:
    • Consent.provision.actor.role must be http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-RoleCode.
    • Consent.provision.actor.code must be GRANTEE or HPOWATT.
  • At most 1 Consent.provision.purpose:
    • Consent.provision.purpose.system must be http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActReason.
    • Consent.provision.purpose.code is non-empty and at most 13 characters.
  • At most 1 environment:
    • Consent.provision.extension.url must be https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/Environment.
    • Length of system and code combined must be less than 15 characters.
  • If filtering by resource type, Consent.provision.class.system must be http://hl7.org/fhir/resource-types.
  • If filtering by data source, Consent.provision.extension.url must be https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataSource.
  • If filtering by data tag, Consent.provision.extension.url must be https://g.co/fhir/medicalrecords/DataTag.
    • Data tag may be a complex extension, nested up to one level, to describe a policy that matches resources with all of the specified tags (interpreted conjunctively).
    • At most 5 nested tags are supported.
  • At most 100 values for all repeated attributes unless described differently in this row.
Enforcement model
  • Each patient may have up to 200 active Consent resources enforced at a time.
  • Each store may have up to 200 active admin policies enforced at a time.
  • A special compact format for the set of all Consent Directives across all active consents for a given Patient must not exceed a set threshold of size; typically there is enough capacity to encode thousands of consent directives, unless very long resource strings are particularly plentiful. For example:
    • Hundreds of Consents on unique data source and data tags, each of which is very long consumes a lot of space.
    • A single Patient with 3000 unique Consent.provision.data.reference resource identifier entries across many active Consents each specifying a unique Consent.provision.actor uses space more aggressively than provisions that don't specify any data reference constraint or otherwise contain many of the same actor reference strings.
  • Each resource may have up to 1000 consent directives from all Consents that are applicable to it.
X-Consent-Scope
  • Minimum one and maximum three actor entries.
  • Maximum one purp entry:
    • Each purp entry must be of the format system/code (v3 is the registered system for http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ActReason).
    • Length of the code must be less than 13.
  • Maximum one env entry:
    • Each env entry must be of the format system/code.
    • Length of system and code combined must be less than 15.
  • btg requires minimum one actor entry.
  • bypass requires minimum one actor entry and one env entry.
Supported methods
Performance
  • ApplyConsents and ApplyAdminConsents scale similarly or better than ImportResources.
  • Regarding consent-aware requests:
    • Our consent model has been optimized for enforcement performance of CRUD operations, including search at scale across many resources and many patients.
    • A read of individual resources may have a marginal impact on request latency, however search performance varies based on the base query and the number of consent scopes that leads to more accessor criteria being active during a search.
    • We recommend running your own performance tests over a variety of representative FHIR request parameters to determine performance characteristics for your use cases based on characteristics of your data, such as how many resources of a given search resource type are in the FHIR store.
    • Our solution keeps ingestion and updates of all resources, including consent resources, light-weight such that throughput during ingestion and other forms of write traffic may proceed with minimum impact.

Best practices

The following sections describe best practices when using FHIR Access Control.

General best practices

  • Don't import FHIR resources and call ApplyConsents or ApplyAdminConsents in parallel. We recommend you to first import FHIR resources and then call ApplyConsents or ApplyAdminConsents. However, if the resources to be imported don't include any Patient or Consent resources, then the enforcement model won't be affected and processing consents or admin policies is not necessary.

  • Don't create custom searches and call ApplyConsents in parallel. We recommend you to do them one after the other.

  • If your workflows require calling multiple ApplyConsents on disjoint PatientScope, they can be called in parallel.

  • ApplyAdminConsents can run in parallel with any number of ApplyConsents, but not with another ApplyAdminConsents.

  • When setting up the proxy, restrict the IAM service account with read-only permissions to avoid writing one patient's data to another patient's records.

  • Don't use the consent proxy when creating or updating records.

  • Validate all write requests to prevent unexpected modification of cross-patient data.

  • When cascading consents are enforced, compartment base resources must be imported first, followed by the remaining compartment resources. Alternatively, all compartment resources can be wrapped within a single bundle and ingested usingfhir.executeBundle.

Delete Patient resource

When deleting a Patient resource, if you also want to remove the consent enforcement for that patient (especially when FhirStore.disableReferentialIntegrity is true), we recommend you to follow this order of operations:

  1. Delete all Consent resources belonging to the Patient resource.

  2. Call ApplyConsents with the PatientScope filter.

To set up an existing store for consent access, complete these steps:

  1. Use UpdateFhirStore to set the ConsentConfig with the consent enforcement version as V1 and set accessEnforced to true.

    curl -X PATCH \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data "{
      'consentConfig': {
        'version': 'V1',
        'accessEnforced': true
      }
    }" "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID?update_mask=consentConfig"

  2. Process patient consents or admin policies

    1. ApplyConsents for patient consents
    curl -X POST \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data "{'validateOnly': false}" \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID:applyConsents"
    1. ApplyAdminConsents for admin policies and admin cascading policies.
    curl -X POST \
    -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data "{
      'newConsentsList': {
          'names': [
          'projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Consent/RESOURCE_ID_1/_history/VERSION_ID_1',
          ...
          'projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID/fhir/Consent/RESOURCE_ID_N/_history/VERSION_ID_N'
          ]
      },
      'validateOnly': false
    }" \
    "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID:applyAdminConsents"

How often to run ApplyConsents or ApplyAdminConsents

  • When the ConsentConfig field is unset: The ConsentConfig field is unset both when a FHIR store is first created and when the ConsentConfig field is cleared. Once the ConsentConfig field is unset, you must repeat the set up the store for consent access before making consent-aware requests to avoid evaluating out of date consent enforcement policies.

  • When the enforcement model changes: When a Consent resource is created, updated, or deleted, the enforcement model changes. In such cases, you must call ApplyConsents or ApplyAdminConsents for these changes to take effect.

    • If you can keep track of the Patients with Consent changes, we recommend you to use PatientScope filter to avoid re-processing the entire store. This filter is useful to immediately refresh enforcement of a small set of Patients.

    • You can also run ApplyConsents periodically using the TimeRange filter. This filter is useful when immediate refreshment is not critical. For example, the following request refreshes enforcement for consent changes between UTC 0AM 2022-09-20 and UTC 0AM 2022-09-21.

      curl -X POST \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth application-default print-access-token)" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data "{
     'validateOnly': false,
     'timeRange': {
       'start': '2022-09-20T00:00:00Z',
       'end': '2022-09-21T00:00:00Z',
     }
    }" \
  "https://healthcare.googleapis.com/v1beta1/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/LOCATION/datasets/DATASET_ID/fhirStores/FHIR_STORE_ID:applyConsents"

The FHIR Consent Viewer displays access control policies. It provides a table containing consent scopes to represent FHIR Access Control rules.

Before you can use the FHIR Consent Viewer, ensure the following:

To view the FHIR Consent Viewer, complete the following steps:

What's next