The FHIR R4 Patient resource represents demographic and administrative information about an individual receiving healthcare services. It is the central reference point for nearly all clinical resources in FHIR. Health Gorilla supports reading, creating, updating, and searching for patients within the network.
Use Cases
- Register a new patient in the Health Gorilla network
- Retrieve or match patient demographics across systems
- Link clinical data (e.g., labs, medications, encounters) to the patient record
Base URLs
- Production: https://api.healthgorilla.com/fhir/R4/Patient
- Sandbox: https://sandbox.healthgorilla.com/fhir/R4/Patient
Authentication
All requests require OAuth 2.0 authentication using a Bearer Token. Unauthorized requests return 401 Unauthorized responses.
Required Scopes
patient.readfor GETpatient.writefor POST, PUT, DELETE
For more information, go to: OAuth 2.0 Authentication.
Supported Methods
Patient Methods
| Method | Operation | Description |
|---|---|---|
GET | Read Patient | Retrieves a specific Patient record by its FHIR ID. |
GET | Search Patient | Searches for Patient records using demographic parameters. |
POST | Create Patient | Submits a new Patient record to the Health Gorilla FHIR server. |
PUT | Update Patient | Updates an existing Patient record by full resource replacement. |
POST | Export CCDA | Generates a CCDA document for the patient via the $export-ccda operation. |
GET | Patient Everything | Retrieves the full clinical history for a patient via the $everything operation. |
Frequently Used Search Parameters
| Parameter | Description | FHIR Value Set / Example Values | FHIR Data Type | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
name | Filters by patient name (first, last, or both) | "John", "Doe", "John Doe" | string | No |
identifier | Searches by a patient identifier | MRN, SSN, or system-specific IDs | token | No |
birthdate | Filters by date of birth | eq1980-01-01, le2000-12-31 | date | No |
gender | Filters by gender | AdministrativeGender (male, female, other) | token | No |
address | Filters by any part of the address | "Sunnyvale" | string | No |
telecom | Searches by phone number or email | 555-1234, [email protected] | token | No |
_id | Searches by the FHIR resource ID | Patient/{id} | token | No |
Commonly Returned Resource Attributes
| Attribute | Description | Example Values | FHIR Data Type | Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
id | Unique FHIR ID for the patient | pat-78910 | id | Yes |
identifier | External patient IDs | MRN: 123456, SSN: 999-12-3456 | Identifier[] | No |
name | Full patient name | John Doe | HumanName[] | Yes |
gender | Patient's gender | male | code | No |
birthDate | Date of birth | 1985-06-21 | date | No |
telecom | Contact information | 555-555-5555, [email protected] | ContactPoint[] | No |
address | Physical or mailing address | 123 Main St, Sunnyvale, CA | Address[] | No |
deceasedBoolean | Indicates if the patient is deceased | false, true | boolean | No |
active | Whether the patient record is active | true | boolean | No |
managingOrganization | Organization responsible for the patient | Organization/{id} | Reference(Organization) | No |
communication.language | Preferred language | en, es | CodeableConcept | No |
generalPractitioner | Reference to the primary care provider | Practitioner/{id} | Reference | No |
Webhooks
Health Gorilla supports webhook notifications when a patient record is created or updated. Patient webhooks may also be triggered indirectly when linked clinical data (e.g., lab results or encounters) are retrieved or modified.
For more information, go to: Webhooks & Polling.
Error Handling
All Patient operations follow standard Health Gorilla error handling, including use of FHIR OperationOutcome for structured responses.
For more information, go to: Error Handling.