Skip to content

Creating a new patient 'EHR'

When a patient is registered with an openCDR, a 'subjectId (normally a real-word identifier like an National identifier e.g. NHS number, CHI number in the UK) or hospital MRI) is submitted by a POST /ehr | create EHR call. A top-level openEHR EHR object is then created in the CDR along with a unique internal ehrId identifier for that patient.

Depending on your local governance environment, you may/ may not be allowed to create new EHRs.

openCDR POST /ehr - Create an EHR from SubjectId/subjectNamespace example

Parameters
subjectId

This is the external identifier by which the patient is known within the CDR. It is normally a real-word identifier like an NHS number, CHI number or Hospital 'MRI' number, and will have been supplied to the CDR when the patients' EHR object was created in the datastore.

Example value : 9999999000

subjectNamespace

This is just a unique string used to identify the numbering scheme used for the 'subjectId'. It will commonly be some sort of URI such as uk.nhs.nhs_number and will have been agreed at national level.

Example value : uk.nhs.nhs_number

    curl --location \
    --request GET 'https://cdr.code4health.org/rest/v1/ehr/?subjectId=9999999000&subjectNamespace=uk.nhs.nhs_number' \
    --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    --header 'Authorization: Basic YTgxZjQ3YzYtYTc1Ny00ZTM0LWI2NDQtM2NjYzYyYjRhMDFjOiQyYSQxMCQ2MTlraQ=='

  var axios = require('axios');

    var config = {
    method: 'get',
    url: 'https://cdr.code4health.org/rest/v1/ehr/?subjectId=9999999000&subjectNamespace=uk.nhs.nhs_number',
    headers: { 
        'Content-Type': 'application/json', 
        'Authorization': 'Basic YTgxZjQ3YzYtYTc1Ny00ZTM0LWI2NDQtM2NjYzYyYjRhMDFjOiQyYSQxMCQ2MTlraQ=='
    }
    };

    axios(config)
    .then(function (response) {
    console.log(JSON.stringify(response.data));
    })
    .catch(function (error) {
    console.log(error);
    });

import requests

url = "https://cdr.code4health.org/rest/v1/ehr/?subjectId=9999999000&subjectNamespace=uk.nhs.nhs_number"

payload = {}
headers = {
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
'Authorization': 'Basic YTgxZjQ3YzYtYTc1Ny00ZTM0LWI2NDQtM2NjYzYyYjRhMDFjOiQyYSQxMCQ2MTlraQ==',
}

response = requests.request("GET", url, headers=headers, data = payload)

print(response.text.encode('utf8'))

Response

Better CDR will give a 200 response code and this structure.

{
    "meta": {
        "href": "https://cdr.code4health.org/rest/v1/ehr/3e674739-950c-4b8a-976b-5aef21c618c5"
    },
    "ehrStatus": {
        "subjectId": "9999999000",
        "subjectNamespace": "uk.nhs.nhs_number",
        "queryable": true,
        "modifiable": true,
        "otherDetails": {
            "@class": "ITEM_TREE",
            "items": [
                {
                    "@class": "CLUSTER",
                    "archetype_details": {
                        "@class": "ARCHETYPED",
                        "archetype_id": {
                            "@class": "ARCHETYPE_ID",
                            "value": "openEHR-EHR-CLUSTER.person_anonymised_parent.v1"
                        },
                        "rm_version": "1.0.1"
                    },
                    "archetype_node_id": "openEHR-EHR-CLUSTER.person_anonymised_parent.v1",
                    "items": [
                        {
                            "@class": "ELEMENT",
                            "name": {
                                "@class": "DV_TEXT",
                                "value": "Administrative Gender"
                            },
                            "archetype_node_id": "at0001",
                            "value": {
                                "@class": "DV_CODED_TEXT",
                                "value": "Male",
                                "defining_code": {
                                    "@class": "CODE_PHRASE",
                                    "terminology_id": {
                                        "@class": "TERMINOLOGY_ID",
                                        "value": "local"
                                    },
                                    "code_string": "at0009"
                                }
                            }
                        },
                        {
                            "@class": "ELEMENT",
                            "name": {
                                "@class": "DV_TEXT",
                                "value": "Birth Sex"
                            },
                            "archetype_node_id": "at0002",
                            "value": {
                                "@class": "DV_CODED_TEXT",
                                "value": "Male",
                                "defining_code": {
                                    "@class": "CODE_PHRASE",
                                    "terminology_id": {
                                        "@class": "TERMINOLOGY_ID",
                                        "value": "local"
                                    },
                                    "code_string": "at0009"
                                }
                            }
                        },
                        {
                            "@class": "ELEMENT",
                            "name": {
                                "@class": "DV_TEXT",
                                "value": "Vital Status"
                            },
                            "archetype_node_id": "at0003",
                            "value": {
                                "@class": "DV_CODED_TEXT",
                                "value": "Alive",
                                "defining_code": {
                                    "@class": "CODE_PHRASE",
                                    "terminology_id": {
                                        "@class": "TERMINOLOGY_ID",
                                        "value": "local"
                                    },
                                    "code_string": "at0004"
                                }
                            }
                        },
                        {
                            "@class": "ELEMENT",
                            "name": {
                                "@class": "DV_TEXT",
                                "value": "Birth Year"
                            },
                            "archetype_node_id": "at0014",
                            "value": {
                                "@class": "DV_DATE",
                                "value": "1944"
                            }
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        }
    },
    "ehrId": "3e674739-950c-4b8a-976b-5aef21c618c5"
}

The only datapoint you need to retrieve is ehrId.

Hint

You may want to consider caching this for the session, so that it can be used for a number of subsequent calls.