The FHIR R4 DocumentReference resource represents a reference to a document or other health record. It can be used to represent a patient's medical documents, including clinical notes, lab reports, discharge summaries, and other documentation generated during the course of care.
Use Cases
- Retrieve clinical documents for patient history
- Share documents with specialists for consultation
- Store signed consent forms and patient agreements
- Access diagnostic images or reports
- Retrieve scanned patient records from archives
Base URLs
- Production: https://api.healthgorilla.com/fhir/R4/DocumentReference
- Sandbox: https://sandbox.healthgorilla.com/fhir/R4/DocumentReference
Authentication
All requests require OAuth 2.0 authentication using a Bearer Token. Unauthorized requests return 401 Unauthorized responses.
Required scopes:
documentreference.readfor GETdocumentreference.writefor POST, PUT, DELETE
For more information, go to: OAuth 2.0 Authentication.
Supported Methods
| Method | Operation | Description |
|---|---|---|
GET | Read DocumentReference | Retrieves a specific DocumentReference record by its FHIR ID. |
GET | Search DocumentReference | Searches for DocumentReference records for a specified patient. |
GET | Download DocumentReference as PDF | Retrieves a PDF version of a specific DocumentReference via the $pdf operation. |
POST | Create DocumentReference | Submits a new DocumentReference record to the Health Gorilla FHIR server. |
DELETE | Delete DocumentReference | Removes an existing DocumentReference record from the system by full resource deletion. |
Frequently Used Search Parameters
| Parameter | Description | FHIR Value Set / Example Values | FHIR Data Type | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
patient | Filters by patient ID | Patient/{id} | Reference | Yes |
status | Filters by the status of the document reference | DocumentReferenceStatus (current) | token | No |
type | Filters by document type or category | DocumentReferenceType (discharge-summary) | token | No |
date | Filters by the document creation date | ge2024-01-01, le2024-12-31 | date | No |
author | Filters by the author of the document | Practitioner/{id}, RelatedPerson/{id} | Reference | No |
category | Filters by document category (e.g., clinical note, imaging) | DocumentReferenceCategory (clinical-note) | token | No |
Commonly Returned Resource Attributes
| Attribute | Description | Example Values | FHIR Data Type | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
patient | Reference to the patient associated with the document | Patient/{id} | Reference(Patient) | Yes |
status | Current status of the document reference | current | CodeableConcept | Yes |
type | Type or category of the document | clinical-note | CodeableConcept | Yes |
content | A list of content references (e.g., a URL or other reference) | Attachment/{id} | Reference(Attachment) | Yes |
author | Who authored the document | Practitioner/{id}, RelatedPerson/{id} | Reference | No |
date | The date the document was created or issued | 2024-02-12T12:34:56Z | dateTime | No |
category | Category or classification of the document | clinical-note | CodeableConcept | No |
Webhooks
Clients can subscribe to receive notifications when new documents are added or existing ones are updated. For more information, go to: Webhooks & Polling.
Error Handling
All DocumentReference operations follow standard Health Gorilla error handling, including use of FHIR OperationOutcome for structured responses. For more information, go to: Error Handling.