Disable Search Parameters

Question

I have an instance of Microsoft FHIR Server, and I would like to disable some of the search parameters. Can I do this by updating the SearchParameter resource and set its "status" to "retired," or do I need to add the parameter's URL to the unsupported-search-parameters list? The goal is to reduce the amount of search values index when our application does not use search-parameters.

P.S. It would be nice if the solution allows to re-activate the search param if needed (and perform $reindex).

Thanks!

Answer 1

There is currently no API level support to do this with the built-in FHIR parameters.

The values in unsupported-search-parameters are loaded into the database, after this they are tracked there. This is because over time the server may support new parameters that can't be turned on immediately as it would leave the indexes inconsistent.

In the Cosmos collection the status can be "Enabled", "Supported", "Disabled" and "Deleted". If Supported it will not be available for search, but will continue to be indexed. When Disabled the server will recheck for support, I believe when set to Deleted is will no longer index the data. To re-enable it could be set back to Supported.