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2.35.1.3 Operation $populatelink on Questionnaire

FHIR Infrastructure Work Group

Maturity Level: 3

Trial Use

Compartments: N/A

Generates a link to a web page to be used to answer a specified Questionnaire. The form at the specified location will be pre-filled with answers to questions where possible based on information provided as part of the operation or already known by the server about the subject of the Questionnaire. If the operation is not called at the instance level, one and only one of the identifier, questionnaire or questionnaireRef 'in' parameters must be provided. If called at the instance level, these parameters will be ignored. The response will contain a url for the web page to direct the user to. The page will allow the user to complete/verify the questionnaire answers and to submit the form. The specified page will be populated with an unanswered set of questions following the group and question structure of the specified Questionnaire. If content parameters were specified or the local parameter was set to true, some of the questions may have answers filled in as well. In the case of repeating questions or groups, typically only one repetition will be provided unless answer values exist that would support populating multiple repetitions. Population of the page with appropriate data is dependent on the questions and/or groups in the Questionnaire having metadata that allows the server to recognize the questions, e.g. through Questionnaire.item.definition or through use of the ConceptMap resource. Regardless of the mechanism used to link the questions in a questionnaire to a "known" mappable concept, solutions using this operation should ensure that the details of the question and associated linkage element are sufficiently similar as to safely allow auto-population; i.e. the question text and context must be sufficiently the same, the value set for the question must fall within the value set for the mapped element, the data types must be the same or convertible, etc.

The official URL for this operation definition is

 http://hl7.org/fhir/OperationDefinition/Questionnaire-populatelink

Formal Definition (as a OperationDefinition).

URL: [base]/Questionnaire/$populatelink

URL: [base]/Questionnaire/[id]/$populatelink

This is an idempotent operation

While it is theoretically possible for the questionnaire response to be completely auto-populated and submitted without human review, the intention of this transaction is merely to reduce redundant data entry. The web page SHOULD ensure that a human submitter has an opportunity to review the auto-populated answers to confirm correctness as well as to complete or expand on information provided by the auto-population process. Complex form designs with conditional logic or tight constraints on cardinalities may be challenging to auto-populate. A server MAY choose to traverse the questionnaire as if it were a human respondent, answering only those questions that are enabled based on previously answered questions. However, doing so may result in minimal population. Alternatively, systems may choose to populate all known answers, independent of dependencies and other constraints. This may cause questions to be answered that should not be answered. The web form is responsible for pruning the final populated questionnaire once human review has taken place. Invoking this operation with the ''content'' parameter may involve the disclosure of personally identifiable healthcare information to the system which is performing the population process. No such disclosures should be made unless the system on which the operation is being invoked is a "trusted" system and appropriate agreements are in place to protect the confidentiality of any information shared with that system.

2.35.1.3.1 Examples

Request:

POST [base]/Questionnnaire/$populatelink
[other headers]

<Parameters xmlns="http://hl7.org/fhir" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://hl7.org/fhir ../../schema/parameters.xsd">
  <parameter>
    <name value="questionnaireRef"/>
    <valueReference>
      <reference value="http://hl7.org/fhir/Questionnaire/questionnaire-sdc-profile-example-ussg-fht"/>
    </valueReference>
  </parameter>
  <parameter>
    <name value="local"/>
    <valueBoolean value="true"/>  
  </parameter>
</Parameters>

Response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
[other headers]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Parameters xmlns="http://hl7.org/fhir">
  <parameter>
    <name value="link"/>
    <valueUri value="https://example.org/form/123457890a.asp"/>
  </parameter>
</Parameters>

For more information about operations, including how they are invoked, see Operations.