Stream: implementers
Topic: US Core Search by identifier
Christopher Marchand (Nov 11 2020 at 18:17):
@Brett Marquard and others - do you plan to incorporate support in the US Core Spec (or have thoughts on why you will not) for searching non-Patient resources by patient identifer and not just id? It is coming up more and more that implementers would like to search resources like condition by the patient identifier (how THEY know the patient) vs the patient id.
Lloyd McKenzie (Nov 11 2020 at 18:19):
I think most of the EHRs work on the premise "first search for the patient and verify you're looking at the right one, THEN search for other stuff". Otherwise, you risk accessing data you shouldn't. (E.g. if there's a typo when you put in the identifier)
Lloyd McKenzie (Nov 11 2020 at 18:20):
Requiring that you search by Patient.id helps ensure you've gone through that process
Brett Marquard (Nov 11 2020 at 19:03):
Great question, we had always thought about it the way Lloyd mentioned -- first search by patient. I am curious what other implementers think.
Michele Mottini (Nov 11 2020 at 19:22):
We do have search by identifier in our server and it is used a lot, but by internal clients that know the risk (and we can - and do - disable it for external apps)
Eric Haas (Nov 11 2020 at 19:42):
We actively discourage it in the upcoming version of US Core:
The search expectations and US Core Profiles have been developed and thoroughly tested using only logical FHIR ids. Therefore a reference to a US Core resource SHOULD include a logical id (Reference.reference), not an identifier (Reference.identifier).
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
