---
title: "Google Cloud Healthcare API"
description: "Local, stateful API emulators for healthcare and life science development. FHIR, SMART on FHIR, EHRs, payers, and life science APIs, without PHI. Synthetic data only."
canonical_url: "https://www.emuhealth.dev/docs/gcphealthcare"
---
# Google Cloud Healthcare API

An emulator of the [Google Cloud Healthcare API](https://cloud.google.com/healthcare-api) FHIR stores, for apps that manage datasets and FHIR stores and read and write FHIR R4 through them. It runs on `http://localhost:4115` by default with the same `/v1` paths, and starts with one FHIR store preloaded with synthetic data. emuhealth is not affiliated with Google.

```bash
npx emuhealth --service gcphealthcare
curl -H 'Authorization: Bearer test' \
  http://localhost:4115/v1/projects/synthetic-project/locations/us-central1/datasets/synthetic-dataset/fhirStores/synthetic-fhir-store/fhir/Patient
```

Point the client's endpoint at `http://localhost:4115` instead of `https://healthcare.googleapis.com`.

## Authentication

Any `Authorization: Bearer <token>` is accepted. Requests without one get `401` with Google's error shape: `{ "error": { "code": 401, "message", "status": "UNAUTHENTICATED" } }`. Other management errors use the same shape (`NOT_FOUND`, `ALREADY_EXISTS`, `INVALID_ARGUMENT`).

## Datasets and FHIR stores

All under `/v1/projects/{project}/locations/{location}`:

| Request | Notes |
|---------|-------|
| `POST /datasets?datasetId=` | Returns a completed long-running operation whose `response` is the dataset |
| `GET /datasets`, `GET /datasets/{id}`, `DELETE /datasets/{id}` | Lists page with `pageSize` and `pageToken` |
| `GET /datasets/{id}/operations/{operation}` | Operations from dataset creation, export, and import |
| `POST /datasets/{id}/fhirStores?fhirStoreId=` | Body `{ "version": "R4", "enableUpdateCreate", "disableReferentialIntegrity", "labels" }`; only R4 |
| `GET`, `PATCH ?updateMask=`, `DELETE /datasets/{id}/fhirStores/{store}` | `updateMask` can be `enableUpdateCreate` and `labels` |
| `POST /datasets/{id}/fhirStores/{store}:export`, `:import` | Completed operations; the emulator does not read or write Cloud Storage |

## FHIR API

Each FHIR store serves the full [FHIR R4](/docs/fhir) API at `/v1/projects/{project}/locations/{location}/datasets/{dataset}/fhirStores/{store}/fhir`, and stores are isolated from each other. As in Cloud Healthcare, `PUT` to a resource that does not exist returns `404` unless the store has `enableUpdateCreate` on. FHIR errors are OperationOutcome resources.

The default store, `projects/synthetic-project/locations/us-central1/datasets/synthetic-dataset/fhirStores/synthetic-fhir-store`, has `enableUpdateCreate` on and the 5 generated synthetic patients.

## Seed config

```yaml
gcphealthcare:
  datasets: # replaces the default dataset
    - project: synthetic-project
      location: us-central1
      id: synthetic-dataset
      fhirStores:
        - id: synthetic-fhir-store
          enableUpdateCreate: true
          preload: true # load the synthetic population
```