A real-world case study of Drupal used not as a traditional CMS, but as a headless governance and integration layer inside an open digital health platform.

Prerequisite

A basic understanding of Drupal and modern web architectures will help attendees get the most from the session, especially concepts such as headless CMS, APIs and frontend/backend separation.

No healthcare background is required. The session is intended for both technical attendees and people interested in digital public services, platform design and open-source adoption in government.

Target Audience

This session is ideal for: Drupal architects, developers and technical leads interested in headless Drupal and large-scale integrations, Digital platform teams working on API-first, event-driven or multi-service ecosystems, Public sector and government digital teams exploring interoperable, governed service platforms, and Innovation, product and service owners who want to understand how Drupal can contribute to open digital public infrastructure.

Outline

What happens when Drupal stops being “just the CMS” and becomes the governed backbone of a complex digital platform?
This session shares lessons from the Plataforma Oberta de Salut de Catalunya, where Drupal 11 is used as a headless backend for catalog management, APIs, taxonomy, governance and lifecycle orchestration of digital health assets. Instead of managing presentation, Drupal acts as a domain backend inside a wider ecosystem that connects React microfrontends, IAM for identity and roles, BPMN flows for homologation and approval workflows, Kafka for event-driven synchronization, clinical and citizen channels for product consumption, Backstage for supporting the digital assets development and OpenSearch/OpenTelemetry for observability and KPIs.
The project responds to a real functional challenge: health information is often fragmented across disconnected systems, making continuity of care, reuse of data and coordinated service delivery harder than they should be. The platform is conceived as an open, modular and interoperable public digital foundation to help institutions reduce that fragmentation, support more integrated and person-centered care, and make it easier to build, govern, homologate, publish and consume trusted digital health applications. In that sense, it is also a practical example of how public institutions can strengthen digital sovereignty by relying on open-source technologies, open standards and reusable platform capabilities instead of closed silos.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session, attendees will be able to:

Understand how Drupal can be used as a headless platform backend rather than a traditional CMS.

Learn how to split responsibilities between Drupal, frontend applications, workflow engines and event-driven services.

See how Drupal can integrate with identity, BPMN flows, Kafka and observability tooling in a large ecosystem.

Identify reusable patterns for building governed digital marketplaces and service platforms with Drupal.

Explore how open-source and open standards such as Drupal, Backstage, openEHR and FHIR can support interoperability and long-term sustainability.

Experience level
Intermediate