Linkage between FHIR resources

Question

For Lab Reports, in FHIR (http://hl7.org/implement/standards/fhir/) if you consider the "DiagnosticReport" resource you can see that it can contain multiple "Observation" resources.

When querying a FHIR based server it would then be possible to query the "DiagnosticReport" resource for a complete Lab Report, or if required an individual "Observation" resource.

The linkage from "DiagnosticReport" to "Observation" resource is clear.

Is there a way to work the links in reverse?

i.e. can you query to see which (if any) "DiagnosticReport" that a particular "Observation" was part of?

Answer 1

Links are navigated in reverse by some kind of indexing system. In the RESTful context, that equates to a search parameter. So if you have an observation 12-34-56, then you can find all the diagnostic reports that include it:

[base]/diagnosticreport/?result=12-34-56

I think the definition of the search parameter "result" could be clearer. I'll make it so.