Stream: implementers
Topic: Patient Resource Deletion
Ashish Anand (Aug 28 2016 at 10:06):
How to delete a patient resource which is referenced in different observation resources?
Lloyd McKenzie (Aug 28 2016 at 14:59):
Nothing in FHIR requires the enforcement of referential integrity. You can delete a record even if it's referenced. (And because reference may exist on other and even unknown servers, there's no real way to prevent this from occurring. If the server supports it, you can always retrieve history to see what it used to look like.
John Moehrke (Aug 28 2016 at 21:21):
There is also nothing in FHIR that prevents enforcement of referential integrity. There is also nothing preventing a server from forbidding delete until all references are resolved...
Lloyd McKenzie (Aug 28 2016 at 21:45):
@John Moehrke Well, all references that server happens to be aware of. With REST, there could be all sorts of things referencing resources on your server and you'd never know.
Lloyd McKenzie (Aug 28 2016 at 21:45):
(Which in turn, somewhat limits the effectiveness of trying to enforce referential integrity . . .)
Brian Postlethwaite (Aug 30 2016 at 02:59):
This could also wander into the version specific references (which a delete wouldn't be affected by)
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
