Overview

There are two types of data served via the aggregated endpoint: merged and copied.

Merged Data

Merged data is where a single downstream data point is constructed from multiple upstream data point sources. The prototypical example of this is Patient: each upstream typically has its own view of what a Patient looks like in its system, capturing demographic and administrative information. The PKB aggregation process collapses all of these upstream representations into a single downstream instance, tying all of the partial clinical records from various upstreams into a single, holisitc record.

Merged data is comparatively rare and is only present for particular resource types. They also have much stricter interface requirements when data in being sent into an upstream in order to aggregate into a single downstream data point successfully. See Customer Interface RequirementsPreview for more information.

Copied Data

Copied data is a much simpler case and affects all resource types which are not explicitly documented as being merged.

In copied data, there is a 1:1 relationship between each data point in the downstream and the upstream. Data points are not de-duplicated or merged in any way.