Create Patient

This page is out of date. E.g. with modern versions of the OpenMRS REST API it is not necessary to create a person and then a patient in two separate POSTs.

You can access the patient resource via the following URL:

http://localhost:8086/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/patient
http://<your domain ip: port>/{APP-NAME}/ws/rest/v1/patient

The patient resource has its own unique representation. The following properties are found in the patient resource representation. You can find more information about available properties at REST Web Service Resources in OpenMRS 1.8.

Property Name	Value	Description
person required	object	Person object which is associated with this patient
identifiers required	list of objects	List of unique patient identifiers

Identifiers can be expanded to:

Property Name	Member Name	Value	Description
identifiers	identifier required	string	Unique ID
	identifierType required	object	Type of ID
	location required	string
	preferred optional	boolean	Person must have at least one preferred ID

Create patient

In order to create a patient you need to have an existing person or create one first with the following command:

POST /openmrs/ws/rest/v1/person
HEADER: Content-Type: application/json
BODY: {"gender": "M", "names": [{"givenName":"Joe", "familyName":"Smith"}]}
RESPONSE: a newly created person, e.g. with a generated UUID: "11f40a1b-0337-4652-86fa-18d4461e38a0"

From the above table you can also see that you will need to provide identifiers. Identifiers among other properties need to specify identifier type and location. You can find out about available patient identifier types requesting:

GET /openmrs/ws/rest/v1/patientidentifiertype
RESPONSE: a list of available identifier types, e.g. with UUIDs: "8d79403a-c2cc-11de-8d13-0010c6dffd0f", "f1b2e10e-035e-11e1-943f-ea16aa1464b8"

To find out about available locations request:

GET /openmrs/ws/rest/v1/location
RESPONSE: a list of locations, e.g. with UUIDs: "8d6c993e-c2cc-11de-8d13-0010c6dffd0f"

You will also need to have a pre-generated identifier for your patient. If you are developing against Reference Application or any distribution, which uses the IDGEN module for patient identifier generation, you will need to send a regular get request. Unfortunately it is not yet exposed as a rest resource (see IDGEN-42). You can use this request for example:

GET openmrs/module/idgen/generateIdentifier.form?source=1&username=admin&password=Admin123
RESPONSE: identifier

Finally you can create a patient for the existing person with UUID "11f40a1b-0337-4652-86fa-18d4461e38a0", identifierType "8d79403a-c2cc-11de-8d13-0010c6dffd0f" and location "8d6c993e-c2cc-11de-8d13-0010c6dffd0f" with the following command:

POST /openmrs/ws/rest/v1/patient
HEADER: Content-Type: application/json
BODY: {"person": "11f40a1b-0337-4652-86fa-18d4461e38a0", "identifiers": [{"identifier":"1234", "identifierType":"8d79403a-c2cc-11de-8d13-0010c6dffd0f", "location":"8d6c993e-c2cc-11de-8d13-0010c6dffd0f", "preferred":true}]}
RESPONSE: a newly created patient

You can test the above commands using a command line tool like curl. You will need to call it as follows:

echo '{

	"identifiers": [
		{
		  "identifier":"1234", 
		  "identifierType":"8d79403a-c2cc-11de-8d13-0010c6dffd0f", 
		  "location":"8d6c993e-c2cc-11de-8d13-0010c6dffd0f",
		  "preferred":true
		} ],
	"person":"11f40a1b-0337-4652-86fa-18d4461e38a0"

}' | curl i -u admin:test -H "Content-type: application/json" -X POST -d @ http://localhost:8086/openmrs/ws/rest/v1/patient

JavaScript example

You can also follow this example implemented using jQuery.

Update patient

The patient resource allows only for editing identifiers. You cannot change the associated person to some other person or any of person's properties. That said if you want to update the birthdate or any other property of a person you need to POST to the person resource.