Getting Started

Overview

The Legemiddelgrunndata API provides Norwegian healthcare treatment group and reimbursement data in a simplified REST format. Data is sourced from the national FHIR APIs and kept up to date via nightly synchronization.

Environments

Examples in this documentation use the placeholder host https://api.example.com; replace it with the base URL of your environment.

Getting access

TODO: Describe how to request access (API key for v1, HelseID client registration for v2), who to contact, and expected lead time.

Prerequisites

The API has two authentication options (see Authentication):

• API key — for the /api/v1/* endpoints. See Getting access.
• HelseID (DPoP) — for the /api/v2/* endpoints. You need access to HelseID and a client with the nhn:legemiddelgrunndata/api scope.

This quickstart uses the v1 endpoints and an API key.

Your First Request

v1 requests require an X-API-KEY header:

curl "https://api.test.legemiddelgrunndata.nhn.no/api/v1/treatment-group?versioned=true" \
  -H "X-API-KEY: your-api-key"

Without versioned=true the response contains only entries with the data objects, without version metadata. See Response format. The example above uses the versioned shape, which is what you need for incremental sync.

Response

{
  "currentVersion": 5,
  "entries": [
    {
      "treatmentGroup": {
        "id": "4077eb19-b094-4712-89b1-c3b5a021ef8d",
        "name": "Natalizumab",
        "description": "Rangering av natalizumab s.c og i.v formulering",
        "diseaseGroup": "MS",
        "jurisdictions": [
          {
            "system": "urn:oid:2.16.578.1.12.4.1.102",
            "code": "100022",
            "display": "Helse Nord RHF"
          }
        ],
        "validityPeriod": {
          "start": "2025-05-01",
          "end": "2027-04-30"
        },
        "reviewDate": "2025-04-10",
        "indications": [
          {
            "coding": [
              {
                "system": "urn:oid:2.16.578.1.12.4.1.1.7110",
                "code": "G35",
                "display": "Multippel sklerose"
              }
            ],
            "text": "Multiple sclerosis"
          }
        ],
        "treatmentAlternatives": [
          {
            "rank": 1,
            "treatmentId": "6d3c0e9f-dd3f-49e6-8c6c-c3ef1ccdfa1a",
            "name": "Natalizumab (Tysabri)",
            "description": null,
            "products": [
              {
                "reference": null,
                "type": "FEST/LegemiddelPakning",
                "identifier": {
                  "system": "FEST/Varenummer",
                  "value": "166028"
                },
                "display": null
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      },
      "version": 5,
      "lastChanged": "2025-04-10T08:30:00Z",
      "isDeleted": false
    }
  ]
}

Key Concepts

• currentVersion — The server's current data version. Store this value to use with diff queries later.
• entries — Array of data items, each wrapped with per-document metadata.
• version — The version when this specific item last changed. Useful for tracking individual updates.
• lastChanged — Timestamp of last modification.
• isDeleted — Always false when fetching without since-version. Relevant when using diff queries (see Versioning and Diff).

Next Steps

• Documentation index — All pages and every endpoint
• Authentication — API keys (v1) and HelseID with DPoP (v2)
• Response format and Errors and limits — Shared by all REST endpoints
• REST API — Treatment groups, reimbursement groups, last updated, shared types
• Versioning and Diff — How to fetch only changes
• FHIR R4 — Read-only FHIR view