Specimen

Specimen flow and relationships (R4)

Specimen participates in orders and results. Typical relationships and search flow (ASCII):

Key relationships (Specimen-centered):

+---------------------+           request           +-----------------------+
| ServiceRequest (R4) | --------------------------> |     Specimen (R4)     |
| id                  |                              | id, status, type      |
+---------------------+                              | subject, receivedTime |
                                                    +-----------------------+
                                                           ^       |
                                                           |       | subject.reference
                              specimen.reference           |       v
+---------------------+   ------------------------------   |   +-----------------+
| Observation (R4)    |                                   |   | Patient (R4)    |
| id                  |                                   |   | id              |
+---------------------+                                   |   +-----------------+

Optional context:
+-------------------------+      0..* specimen[]      +-------------------+
| DiagnosticReport (R4)   | ------------------------> |   Specimen (R4)   |
+-------------------------+                           +-------------------+

Search for Specimen resources by patient:

Client                                      FHIR API
  | GET /api/fhir/r4/Specimen                 |
  |     ?patient=Patient/{patient-id}          |
  |------------------------------------------->|
  | 200 Bundle (type=searchset)                |
  |<-------------------------------------------|

DDFS does not advertise reverse-included Observations for a Specimen search. To find Observations for a specimen, search Observation with an exact specimen=Specimen/{id} reference or with specimen:identifier. Repeated values, comma-delimited alternatives, chains, and other reference modifiers are not supported for this parameter.

Primitive extension support

Specimen supports primitive companion elements in underscore form for selected fields:

_implicitRules, _language, _receivedTime, _status.

For JSON usage patterns, see FHIR primitive extensions in JSON.

Successful HTTP Responses

This table lists successful HTTP responses for this resource.

For cross-resource interaction summaries, see FHIR status codes.

See also

For permanent deletion guidance, see Data deletion and purge operations.