A FHIR Terminology Service is a RESTful API that supports data formats and interactions with certain resource types. Which specifications are correct?

• A. JSON only; READ and WRITE interactions for CodeSystem, ValueSet, and ConceptMap
• B. XML and JSON formats; READ and SEARCH interactions for CodeSystem, ValueSet, and ConceptMap
• C. XML only; READ and SEARCH interactions for CodeSystem, ValueSet, and ConceptMap
• D. XML and JSON formats; READ and WRITE interactions for CodeSystem, ValueSet, and ConceptMap

Answer: (B)

In FHIR, a Terminology Service is a RESTful API that serves terminology resources using the standard data formats and REST interactions defined by the spec. This service supports both XML and JSON as the wire formats, so clients can send and receive terminology data in either serialization. For the core terminology resources, the typical REST interactions you use are read (to fetch a specific resource by its id) and search (to query resources based on criteria like URL, identifier, or status). The primary terminology resources—CodeSystem, ValueSet, and ConceptMap—are the ones you interact with using these read and search operations.

JSON-only would omit a supported format, since FHIR defines both JSON and XML. XML-only omits the also-supported JSON format. Including WRITE interactions implies creating or updating terminology resources via the service, which isn’t the standard pattern for how terminology data is typically queried and retrieved in the Terminology Service context.