FHIR DevDays - Exercise Answers
During the hands-on session of the SNOMED CT on FHIR tutorial, you will learn how to query FHIR Terminology Services to retrieve SNOMED CT content using advanced queries leveraging the SNOMED CT ontology. This will be using, and therefore based around the capabilities, of the SNOMED International open source Terminology Server, Snowstorm, https://github.com/IHTSDO/snowstorm.
After completing this tutorial, you will be able to use the FHIR Terminology Services API:
Retrieve information for a given concept
Search for SNOMED CT content based on
Simple search terms
Reference sets
Expression Constraint Language (ECL) queries
Find map targets for give SNOMED CT content
Examples can be found documented in the Snowstorm repository - https://github.com/IHTSDO/snowstorm/blob/develop/docs/using-the-fhir-api.md or in Postman here, https://documenter.getpostman.com/view/462462/S1TVXJ3k
On this page
All these exercises are intended to guide you through retrieving SNOMED CT content. However, if you have applications/code where the results of queries can be directly used, you are likely to get more benefit from the exercises. And of course, you can retrieve other content that is not necessarily specified here.
For the purpose of the exercises, use the following endpoint - https://snowstorm-fhir.snomedtools.org/fhir
Answers
Exercise #1 - Answers
Question | Answer | |
---|---|---|
1 | Discover the capabilities of SNOMED International Snowstorm terminology server | https://snowstorm-fhir.snomedtools.org/fhir/metadata
|
2 | Retrieve the information for the concept with the following SNOMED CT identifier, 82272006 | |
3 | Retrieve the information for the concept with the following SNOMED CT identifier, 82272006 in Spanish | or for Sweden: /fhir/CodeSystem/$lookup?version=http://snomed.info/sct/45991000052106&code=82272006 |
4 | Retrieve the normal form for the concept with the following SNOMED CT identifier, 22298006 |
|
Exercise #2 - Answers
Question | Answer | |
---|---|---|
1 | Retrieve all types of cancer | 4247 results - https://snowstorm-fhir.snomedtools.org/fhir/ValueSet/$expand?url=http://snomed.info/sct?fhir_vs=isa/363346000&count=10 |
2 | Retrieve all concepts related to asthma, returning results in Spanish | |
3 | Find the ICD-10 map targets for 9977002 | Blister of ankle with infection (disorder) | | see details on the map targets here - https://mapping.ihtsdotools.org/#/record/conceptId/9977002 |
Exercise #3 - Answers
Question | Answer | |
---|---|---|
1 | Find all the concepts that are members of the General Practice / Family Practice reference set | 4270 results - https://snowstorm-fhir.snomedtools.org/fhir/ValueSet/$expand?url=http://snomed.info/sct?fhir_vs=ecl/%5E450970008&count=10 |
2 | Find all the concepts that are members of the General Practice / Family Practice reference set and are a type of fracture | |
3 | Find all the concepts that are respiratory disorders due to an allergic reaction to pollen | ECL = |
Exercise #4 - Creating value sets
| Question | Answer |
---|---|---|
1 | Using the exampleVS.json file found at the link below as an example (or use your own JSON file), create a new value set, making sure you change the identifier in the file and give it a unique identifier such as <yourname-domain> | curl -i --request PUT "https://snowstorm-devdays.snomedtools.org/fhir/ValueSet/caffeine-products" --header "Content-Type: application/fhir+json" -d @caffeine-products.json |
2 | Retrieve the previously created value set | https://snowstorm-devdays.snomedtools.org/fhir/ValueSet/caffeine-products
|
3 | Use the expand operation on the value set as well as filter parameters | https://snowstorm-devdays.snomedtools.org/fhir/ValueSet/caffeine-products/$expand https://snowstorm-devdays.snomedtools.org/fhir/ValueSet/caffeine-products/$expand?filter=aspirin |
4 | Add some new items to the value set by updating the JSON file | curl -i --request PUT "https://snowstorm-devdays.snomedtools.org/fhir/ValueSet/caffeine-products" --header "Content-Type: application/fhir+json" -d @caffeine-products.json |
Copyright © 2025, SNOMED International