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.read for GET
patient.write for POST and PUT

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 `$export-ccda` operation.
`GET`	Everything	Retrieves available patient-scoped data for the specified patient via the `$everything` operation.

Operations

The Patient resource supports the following FHIR operations:

Operation	Endpoint	Description
`$everything`	`GET /Patient/{id}/$everything`	Retrieves available patient-scoped data as a FHIR Bundle.
`$export-ccda`	`POST /Patient/{id}/$export-ccda`	Generates a CCDA document for the specified patient.

For implementation details, see:

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`, `john@example.com`	`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`, `jdoe@example.com`	`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.

Additional Resources

HL7 FHIR Patient