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Sandbox Testing

Use the sandbox environment to test API integrations safely without accessing live clinical data. It provides full API access and is populated with synthetic patients and mock documents that simulate real-world scenarios. You can access the sandbox through the web UI or RESTful API. To request access, contact Health Gorilla Support.

Access Test Patients

Health Gorilla maintains a set of predefined test patients in the sandbox environment. These patients contain realistic clinical data and support testing workflows such as:

  • Retrieving Patient360 data
  • Receiving Clinical Alerts or ADT notifications
  • Querying historical observations, medications, and encounters
  • Accessing diagnostic reports or discharge summaries

Patient identifiers are consistent across sandbox environments. Some examples include:

  • First Name: Test
  • Last Name: Patient
  • MRN or identifier: TEST123456, SYNTHETIC987

To retrieve a test patient, search by name or identifier:

GET /fhir/R4/Patient?given=Test&family=Patient

Some sandbox tenants may contain additional synthetic data specific to your integration.

Create Custom Test Patients

You may create new test patients in the sandbox using a POST request. Custom patients are useful for simulating edge cases or proprietary workflows.

POST /fhir/R4/Patient
Content-Type: application/fhir+json
Authorization: Bearer {access\_token}

Data created in the sandbox remains isolated from production and is persistent unless cleared by request.

Understand Sandbox Limitations

  • The sandbox is a closed system. No outbound emails or external notifications are sent. Contact Health Gorilla Support for actions like password resets.
  • Patient matching behavior is limited and may not reflect full production logic.
  • The sandbox does not support real-time queries to external HIEs or labs. All data is simulated.
  • Clinical Alerts and ADT notifications can be triggered manually or through test tools.
  • New feature releases are deployed to the sandbox before production to support compatibility testing.

Simulate Diagnostic Workflows

  • Test orders submitted to the sandbox Lab Network return mock results.
  • Results are randomly generated and not clinically valid, but allow validation of end-to-end lab workflows.

Verify API Version Compatibility

The sandbox environment supports all Health Gorilla API types:

  • FHIR R4: Use for current workflows, including data retrieval, writeback, and webhook subscriptions.
  • HL7 v2: Test HL7 messages using sandbox connectors. Contact Health Gorilla to enable HL7 feeds.
  • Webhooks: Trigger Clinical Alerts, document availability notifications, and lab events using synthetic test patients. Ensure your webhook endpoint is accessible and accepts POST requests. To simulate webhook triggers, create or update Encounter, Observation, or DocumentReference resources.

Note: FHIR STU3 is supported in the sandbox only for maintaining older integrations. In these cases, asynchronous batch retrieval for Patient360 is performed using the $p360-retrieve operation with polling-based results.

Manage Sandbox Data

To reset your sandbox tenant or request additional test patients, contact your Client Success Manager or email support@healthgorilla.com. Data in the sandbox is persistent and will not be cleared unless explicitly requested.

Best Practices

  • Test complete workflows from patient creation to data retrieval.
  • Validate edge cases, error handling, and authorization scenarios.
  • Protect API tokens and credentials, even in sandbox environments.
  • Use the sandbox to onboard new team members and simulate production-like use before go-live.