Workflow | Encounter

0. References

1. Read

Return a single Encounter for the specified id.

All requests SHALL contain a valid ‘Authorization’ header and SHALL contain an ‘Accept’ header. The `Accept` header indicates the format of the response the client is able to understand, this will be one of the following application/json+fhir or application/xml+fhir.

1.1. Response

A full set of response codes can be found here API Response Codes. FHIR Servers SHALL support the following response codes:

2. Search

Fetches a bundle of all Encounter resources for the specified patient.

All requests SHALL contain a valid ‘Authorization’ header and SHALL contain an ‘Accept’ header. The `Accept` header indicates the format of the response the client is able to understand, this will be one of the following application/json+fhir or application/xml+fhir.

2.1. Search Parameters

This implementation guide outlines some suggested search parameters for the Encounter resource in the table below. To be conformant, provider systems are required to implement all of the SHALL parameters. Provider systems may implement the full list of search parameters for the Encounter resource (HL7 FHIR STU3 Encounter).

2.1.1. date

See date for details on this parameter. ‘date’ can be used multiple times as a search parameter

GET [baseUrl]/Encounter?patient=1&date=ge2010-01-01&date=le2011-12-31

Return all Encounter resources that have a date greater than or equal to 1st Jan 2010, a date less than or equal to 31st Dec 2011 and Patient with a logical id of 1.

2.1.2. patient

See reference for details on this parameter. The patient parameter can be used two ways:

This SHALL be supported for all endpoint provider systems.

id is the logical id of the patient on the server which can be obtained by a Patient resource query.

GET [baseUrl]/Encounter?patient=42

Return all Encounter resources for Patients with a logical id of 42

This SHOULD be supported by middleware systems (e.g. enterprise application integration (EAI) and the enterprise service bus (ESB)) and MAY be supported for endpoint provider systems.

system is a uniform resource identifier which defines which CodeSystem the identifer belongs to. For NHS Number this would be https://fhir.nhs.uk/Id/nhs-number and code would be the NHS Number.

GET [baseUrl]/Encounter?patient.identifier=https://fhir.nhs.uk/Id/nhs-number|9876543210

Return all Encounter resources for Patients with a NHS Number of 9876543210

2.2. Search Response

If the search fails (cannot be executed, not that there is no matches), the return value is a status code 4xx or 5xx with an OperationOutcome.

If the search succeeds, the return content is a Bundle with type = searchset containing the results of the search as a list of resources in a defined order. The result list can be long, so servers MAY use paging. If they do, they SHALL use this Paging method for breaking the list into pages if appropriate. The server MAY also return an OperationOutcome resource with additional information about the search; if one is sent it SHALL NOT include any errors, and it shall be marked with an entry mode of include.

A full set of response codes can be found here API Response Codes. FHIR Servers SHALL support the following response codes:

3. Example

3.1 Request Query

3.1 cURL

Return all Encounter resources with an id of 4, the format of the response body will be xml. The Reference Implementation is hosted at ‘https://data.developer.nhs.uk/ccri/’.

curl -X GET -H 'Accept: application/xml+fhir' -H 'Authorisation: BEARER [token]' -v 'https://data.developer.nhs.uk/ccri/STU3/Encounter?patient=4'

3.2 Explore the Response

Explore the response in XML & JSON on the Reference Implementation below

Reference Implementation
XML Patient id search RI viewer
JSON Patient id search RI viewer