$purge

The $purge operation permanently deletes a Patient resource and all resources in that patient's compartment, including all historical versions.

This operation implements the FHIR Patient Purge specification. By default, this operation uses the system default compartment for Patient, or a custom compartment can be passed as a parameter.

Endpoint

POST /fhir/Patient/<patient-id>/$purge

Parameters

The request body is optional. When provided, it must be a Parameters resource with the following optional parameter:

Async mode

To run the purge asynchronously, include the Prefer: respond-async header. In async mode, the Patient is deleted immediately, while compartment resources are deleted in background tasks. The response includes a Content-Location header with a URL to check the operation status.

Basic usage

Send a POST request to purge a patient and all associated resources:

POST /fhir/Patient/pt-1/$purge
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "resourceType": "OperationOutcome",
  "id": "informational",
  "issue": [
    {
      "severity": "fatal",
      "code": "informational",
      "diagnostics": "All resources for Patient/pt-1 were purged"
    }
  ]
}

After the operation completes, the Patient and all resources referencing it (Observations, Conditions, Encounters, etc.) are permanently removed, including their history.

Async mode

POST /fhir/Patient/pt-1/$purge
Content-Type: application/json
Prefer: respond-async

{
  "resourceType": "OperationOutcome",
  "id": "informational",
  "issue": [
    {
      "severity": "fatal",
      "code": "informational",
      "diagnostics": "Purge for Patient/pt-1 accepted for async processing"
    }
  ]
}

Check async status

Query the status URL from the Content-Location header:

GET /fhir/$async/<operation-id>

{
  "resourceType": "Bundle",
  "type": "batch-response",
  "entry": [
    {
      "response": {
        "status": "200 OK",
        "outcome": {
          "resourceType": "OperationOutcome",
          "id": "informational",
          "issue": [
            {
              "severity": "fatal",
              "code": "informational",
              "diagnostics": "Operation completed successfully"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Cancel async operation

To cancel an active async purge, send a DELETE request to the status URL:

DELETE /fhir/$async/<operation-id>

Custom compartment definition

By default, $purge uses the standard server Patient CompartmentDefinition. You can provide a custom compartment definition to control exactly which resource types are purged.

For example, to purge only Observations associated with the patient:

POST /fhir/Patient/pt-1/$purge
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "resourceType": "Parameters",
  "parameter": [
    {
      "name": "compartmentDefinition",
      "resource": {
        "resourceType": "CompartmentDefinition",
        "url": "http://example.com/custom-compartment",
        "name": "CustomPatientCompartment",
        "code": "Patient",
        "status": "active",
        "search": true,
        "resource": [
          {
            "code": "Observation",
            "param": ["subject"]
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

{
  "resourceType": "OperationOutcome",
  "id": "informational",
  "issue": [
    {
      "severity": "fatal",
      "code": "informational",
      "diagnostics": "All resources for Patient/pt-1 were purged"
    }
  ]
}