Stream: implementers
Topic: Enforcing unique identifiers?
Bob Milius (Jul 27 2021 at 20:42):
Is it reasonable for a FHIR server to enforce a rule that if a resource has an identifier, that it be unique in the server? For example, to automatically add the equivalent of If-None-Exist: identifier=system|code header whenever a Patient is POSTed. One could argue that this may violate the expectation of the POST if the header wasn't explicitly included, but it seems like a reasonable thing to do.
Lloyd McKenzie (Jul 27 2021 at 22:20):
Servers are free to establish business rules about what data they'll except (and from whom). They might differentiate by which identifiers they expect to be unique, enforce uniqueness on all or on none. The rules could also vary by resource. (You want to be more careful about enforcing uniqueness when dealing with canonical resources.)
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
