The articles describe and define Discovery Data Service functionality and technology; the architecture that underpins the data service software, the components that make up the service, the testing and assurance processes, and the resources, technologies, and software that are used to host, develop, and support the service.
Discovery overview
These articles provide background to the ideas, philosophies and approaches that have resulted in the Discovery Data Service. They cover the original objectives, the approach to collaboration and shared tenancy, and the information governance rules that underpin the way privacy and sharing are balanced.
- What is Discovery? This article describes what Discovery is and how it is conceptualised at a very high level
These articles provide information about the services, structure, and functionality that operate using the Discovery Common Information Model; one of the fundamental tenets of the Discovery Data Service. This is the starting point for those interested in health data and the information derived from it, and why Discovery may be different from other approaches:
- Basic types of health data - a very high level overview of the types of data held within the Discovery data stores
- Information model services - the technical services that enable the common information model to be used
- Discovery information modelling language - describes the language(s) used to build the information model and for computers to process the model contents
Operational and interoperability topics
These articles provide information about how systems can interoperate with Discovery and provide further links into test APIs, schemas, and other documentation associated with data formats for sending and receiving data.
- Secure publication to the DDS - lists the technical interfaces in place for receiving data from publishers.
- Remote Subscriber Database (RSD) SQL guide - provides information for subscribers that wish to host their own copy of data supplied by Discovery.
- Generic publisher system data requirements - provides a set of guides for systems that are publishing data through the Discovery Data Service.
- Current data sets - the broad types of data received from various systems
- Publishers and mapping to the commmon model - provides the specification for how supplier system information is mapped to the common model, using FHIR as the intermediary
Services
These articles provide information about the services provided by the Discovery Data Service and the underlying functionality.
- Simple Generic query Service - describes a service that provides data on request for data that might be conceptually very complex, but falls into simple common patterns.
- Information model services - the technical services that enable the common information model to be used
- Get health record - describes the service that obtains a fully structured health record about a person, in real time via a standards based API.
- Record publication service -describes the service that publishes data from health records for specific purposes, often immediately on receipt.
- Data set distribution service - describes the service that distributes sets of data for populations of patients where the definition is complex or where the subscriber is hosting a copy of the data permanently
Technologies
These articles provide information about the technologies used in the Discovery Data services, including summaries of considerations and tests that have been undertaken when selecting technologies.
- Graph versus relational database - considers two of the approaches for storing the main health care record stores.