Database schema

Aidbox database schema

All resource types in Aidbox are stored in different tables, named with a lowercased resource type name. All these tables have a similar schema:

CREATE TABLE "patient" (
  id text PRIMARY KEY,               -- id of resource
  txid bigint not null,              -- version id and logical transaction id
  ts timestamptz DEFAULT NOW(),      -- last updated time
  resource_type text,                -- resource type
  status resource_status not null,   -- resource status
  resource jsonb not null            -- resource body
);

You use the DB Console to explore the database:

select * from "entity" limit 10

As you can see, resources are stored as JSONB documents in the resource column.

Resources are stored in Aidbox JSON format, which is more friendly for storage, and converted into FHIR in REST API on the fly!

You can access attributes of resources using PostgreSQL JSON functions:

SELECT
   resource#>>'{name,0,famly}' as last_name,
   resource#>>'{name,0,given,0}' as first_name
FROM "patient"
LIMIT 10

Custom Queries

You can define and expose over REST API sophisticated queries in SQL on FHIR data using Custom Queries.

Tutorials

Check out our video tutorial about SQL on FHIR in PostgreSQL: