Get Started: Concepts: Considerations

Resources

FHIR resources contain the following items:

• Extension: Includes a link to the resource definition. For example: "http://hl7.org/fhir/StructureDefinition/daf-patient"
• Narrative: Includes a readable description of the resource.
• Structured data: Includes the individual, discrete data items that make up the resource.

A resource can usually reference other resources.

For example, a patient resource can reference an allergy resource. However, resources are independent; you don’t need other resources to correctly interpret a resource. Resources reference each other extensively to form a web of information. You need to resolve references to fully understand the data. A reference is relative to a server-based URL.

<Procedure xmlns="http://hl7.org/fhir"> 
 <subject> 
   <reference value="Patient/23"/> 
 </subject>

All resources carry an HTML representation of the content to ensure clinical safety in the case that the receiver does not understand the content.