Use _include and _revinclude to retrieve referenced resources in a single search request

domain: hl7.org/fhir/R4 · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗

Steps

  1. Add _include parameters to a search to pull forward-referenced resources (e.g., _include=MedicationRequest:patient to include the Patient from each MedicationRequest)
  2. Add _revinclude parameters to pull resources that reference the search results (e.g., _revinclude=Provenance:target to include Provenance records targeting each result)
  3. Parse the returned Bundle, distinguishing 'match' entries (primary search results) from 'include' entries using entry.search.mode
  4. Handle iterative includes (_include:iterate) when chaining references across multiple hops, and confirm the server supports this capability
  5. Avoid requesting unbounded _revinclude on high-cardinality relationships, as the result set can be extremely large

Known gotchas

Related routes

Use _revinclude in a FHIR search to retrieve resources that reference the primary search results in the same Bundle
hl7.org · 6 steps · unrated
Use FHIR _include and chained search parameters to fetch related resources in one request
fhir · 6 steps · unrated
Query a FHIR server using _revinclude to fetch Provenance resources that reference returned resources, and interpret provenance to trace the origin and chain of custody of clinical data
hl7.org/fhir · 5 steps · unrated

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