Medplum eFax Demo

This example application demonstrates how to use Medplum's custom FHIR operations to send and receive faxes via eFax integration.

NOTE: This demo uses Medplum's hosted eFax integration. The Medplum team must enable eFax for your project before you can use it. Contact Medplum to enable eFax for your project.

Features

• Fax Inbox: View received faxes and refresh from eFax using the $receive-efax operation
• Sent Faxes: View outbound faxes
• Send Fax: Compose and send faxes using the $send-efax operation

Prerequisites

1. A Medplum account with the eFax integration enabled (contact the Medplum team)
2. eFax API credentials configured in your Medplum project's secrets (see eFax Integration Documentation)

Setup

1. Install dependencies:

   npm install

2. Configure environment variables by creating a .env file (OPTIONAL)

   MEDPLUM_BASE_URL=https://api.medplum.com/
   MEDPLUM_CLIENT_ID=your-client-id
   

3. Start the development server:

   npm run dev

4. Open http://localhost:3000 in your browser

Sending a Fax

Recipient fax numbers must be in E.164 format: a leading + and country calling code (e.g. +1 for US/Canada), then the number—eFax requires this; a local number without a country code may fail.

The demo creates resources sequentially when sending a fax:

// Step 1: Upload the file as an attachment (creates Binary resource)
const attachment = await medplum.createAttachment({
  data: file,
  contentType: file.type,
  filename: file.name,
});

// Step 2: Create the recipient Organization
const recipient = await medplum.createResource<Organization>({
  resourceType: 'Organization',
  name: 'Acme Medical Center',
  contact: [{ telecom: [{ system: 'fax', value: '+15551234567' }] }],
});

// Step 3: Create the Communication
const communication = await medplum.createResource<Communication>({
  resourceType: 'Communication',
  status: 'in-progress',
  category: [{ coding: [{ system: 'http://medplum.com/fhir/CodeSystem/fax-direction', code: 'outbound' }] }],
  medium: [{ coding: [{ system: 'http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/v3-ParticipationMode', code: 'FAXWRIT' }] }],
  sender: createReference(profile),
  recipient: [createReference(recipient)],
  payload: [{ contentAttachment: attachment }],
});

// Step 4: Call the $send-efax operation
await medplum.post(medplum.fhirUrl('Communication', '$send-efax'), communication);

Custom FHIR Operations

$send-efax

Send a fax via eFax from a Communication resource.

POST /fhir/R4/Communication/$send-efax

$receive-efax

Poll for and receive faxes from eFax.

POST /fhir/R4/Communication/$receive-efax                    # Uses project-level eFaxUserId secret
POST /fhir/R4/Practitioner/{id}/$receive-efax  # Uses Practitioner's eFax identifier
POST /fhir/R4/Organization/{id}/$receive-efax  # Uses Organization's eFax identifier

Learn More

• eFax Integration Documentation
• Custom FHIR Operations Documentation
• Medplum Bots