Understanding FHIR's Bundle Resource: How to Send Multiple Medical Records at Once

Details

This document is a technical tutorial focusing on the 'Bundle' resource, which is part of the HL7 FHIR specification. In FHIR, it is common to need to send or process multiple pieces of data—such as search results or related operations—rather than just a single resource. The Bundle resource addresses this requirement. Specifically, the `Bundle.entry` element can contain zero or more entries, each holding a reference URL (`full_url`) and the actual data payload (`resource`). This example demonstrates how to construct a search set containing two Patient resources, detailing the process of grouping multiple patient records into a single Bundle via code. This capability for batch processing is crucial in electronic health record systems and regional healthcare networks. It enables the efficient integration and sharing of related data acquired at different times. As FHIR standardization progresses, understanding this Bundle structure is fundamental knowledge for implementing interoperability within Japanese medical IT systems.