Introduction

FerroPIX is the Master Patient Index of the FerroHEALTH family, in pure Rust. Every organisation issues its own identifiers for the same person. A patient index holds the cross-reference between those identifiers and answers the question every other component starts with: who is this patient, and which identifier does each system know them by. FerroPIX also mints the pseudonymous identifiers the clinical domain uses, so a clinical record carries a pseudonym and identifying data stays outside it.

FerroPIX speaks the IHE profiles integrators already expect: PIX and PDQ, in their FHIR forms PIXm and PDQm, the PMIR identity feed, and the HL7 v2 PIX and PDQ transactions beside them.

Where the project is

FerroPIX is built in the order of its milestones, and this book says which parts exist today.

• Built and published: the two libraries of the identity specifications FerroPIX owns, ihe-iti (the IHE identity profiles, a feature each) and nl-generic-functions (the Dutch Generic Functions). They hold the client side of each profile and are on crates.io for any product to use. FerroFED takes both from there.
• Planned: the server. The PIXm Manager, the PDQm Supplier, the PMIR Registry, the persisted cross-reference, pseudonym minting, the HL7 v2 PIX and PDQ transactions and the container image are the v0.0.3 milestone. Until it lands there is no FerroPIX binary to run, and the pages under Operate say so.

What FerroPIX is lists every capability with its status.

How this book is organised

• Evaluate: what FerroPIX is, which specification versions it follows, and the licence.
• Integrate: how to use the published crates today, feature by feature.
• Operate: configuration, deployment, security and audit, and operations, each with what holds today and what the server adds.
• Contribute: how the work is organised and how this book stays in step with the code.

This book covers FerroPIX alone. What every FerroHEALTH product shares is in the family book: how the products fit together, the manufacturer, Cadasto B.V., with its security policy, post-market procedure and the Cyber Resilience Act from the manufacturer’s side, and licensing and trademarks.