Glossary
What is HAPI FHIR?
HAPI FHIR is an open-source Java framework for FHIR. It includes a JPA-based server implementation widely used as a foundation for production FHIR backends.
In context
HAPI provides resource models, parsers, validators, a JPA-based server with PostgreSQL or MySQL persistence, and an interceptor framework for extending the server. It is the most common open-source FHIR server in production use.
HAPI is a strong server foundation. Building a digital health backend on top of it means writing the application layer (authentication, fine-grained authorization, frontend-friendly APIs, scheduling, subscriptions, admin tooling) yourself.
How Fire Arrow handles it
Fire Arrow Server uses HAPI FHIR JPA as its data layer and adds the application backend layer around it: OAuth and OIDC authentication, rule-based authorisation that respects FHIR compartments and clinical relationships, identity-conditional and field-level filtering, a separately authorised GraphQL surface, server-side care-plan scheduling, FHIR Subscriptions across REST hook, email, WebSocket, and queue channels, durable and one-time API tokens, identity protection, and a web admin UI.
