Retrieving resource history

There are several ways to retrieve version history for resources with the FhirClient.

Note

Servers are not required to support version retrieval. If the history interaction is supported, the server can can choose on which level it is supported. You can check the CapabilityStatement of the server to see what it supports.

History of a specific resource

The version history of a specific resource can be retrieved with the History method of the FhirClient. It is possible to specify a date, to include only the changes that were made after the given date, and a count to specify the maximum number of results returned.

The method returns a Bundle resource with the history for the resource instance, for example:

var pat_31_hist = client.History("Patient/31");
// or
var pat_31_hist = client.History("Patient/31", new FhirDateTime("2016-11-29").ToDateTimeOffset());
// or
var pat_31_hist = client.History("Patient/31", new FhirDateTime("2016-11-29").ToDateTimeOffset(), 5);

Note

The Bundle may contain entries without a resource, when the version of the instance was the result of a delete interaction.

History for a resource type

Sometimes you may want to retrieve the history for a type of resource instead of an instance (e.g. the versions of all Patients). In this case you can use the TypeHistory method.

var pat_hist = client.TypeHistory<Patient>();

As with the method on the instance level, a date and page size can optionally be specified.

System wide history

When a system wide history is needed, retrieving all versions of all resources, the FhirClient’s WholeSystemHistory method is used. Again, it is possible to specify a date and a page size.

var lastMonth = DateTime.Today.AddMonths(-1);
var last_month_hist = client.WholeSystemHistory(since: lastMonth, pageSize: 10);

In this case the function retrieves all changes to all resources that have been done since the last month and limits the results to a maximum of 10. See Paged results for an example on how to page through the resulting Bundle.