The best way to describe FHIR’s Basic resource is the “when-all-else-fails” resource.
I’d like to have been a fly on the wall when it was included in FHIR — probably a lively meeting. My guess is the consensus went something like “Nobody wants it, but we probably have to have it.”
It has 5 elements.
The expectation is that the user populates it with extensions that give it meaning.
FHIR documents three possible use cases for the Basic resource:
- Concepts not yet defined in FHIR
- Narrative-only resources that don’t map to an existing resource
- Custom resources not appropriate for inclusion in the FHIR specification
The first two make sense. FHIR is still evolving — not all scenarios are mapped or sufficiently mapped.
The third one is where the problems creep in. A casual look at the Basic resources being tested on the public HAPI test server illustrate this:
- Patient preferences
- UI configurations for drop down menus
- App configuration data
- User role definitions
- Encounter notes from Practitioners
There are question marks over most of these. Do they belong in different resources? Do they belong in FHIR at all?
If you’re using or considering using the Basic resource, ask yourself two questions:
Are you trying to fill a hole or a perceived hole in the FHIR spec?
Or are you trying to fill a hole in your solution’s data model?
The two are not the same.
More about the Basic resource: https://hl7.org/fhir/R4/basic.html
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