Versioning in FHIR means changes are never lost

The ‘_history’ parameter gives you access to all changes made to a resource.

Observation value changes. Name and address changes. Procedure status changes. The major and the minor.

Most managed FHIR servers support the _history parameter.

Here’s a GET request for a Patient I added to the HAPI server:
/Patient/10753124/
http://hapi.fhir.org/baseR4/Patient/10753124/

A single patient is returned.
– Edgar Allen Poe, 77 Yorktown Avenue
– edgar.allan.poe@example.com, 555-1234

And an almost identical GET request, with _history appended to the URL:
/Patient/10753124/_history
http://hapi.fhir.org/baseR4/Patient/10753124/_history

This request returns a Bundle of 4 Patient resources, each one the same but for a small change I made, and each with a different versionId and updatedDate in the Meta section.

Same patient — different address, different phone number, different email.

If you’re building an app or a solution on the back of a FHIR server that supports versioning, don’t ignore it. It’s filled with possibility!

Discussion

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