Order healthcare search results

Preview

This feature is subject to the "Pre-GA Offerings Terms" in the General Service Terms section of the Service Specific Terms. Pre-GA features are available "as is" and might have limited support. For more information, see the launch stage descriptions.

By default, when you search healthcare data, the search results are returned in reverse chronological order. When you search over the following FHIR resource types that contain unstructured text, you can order your search results according to their relevance to your query:

• Composition
• DiagnosticReport
• DocumentReference

Example scenario

Suppose that you're searching for the keyword insulin for a given patient and you've filtered the results to the resources that contain unstructured text. Among other results, you receive the following documents:

• Result 1: A DocumentReference resource, dated 24 April, 2024, that contains notes about the patient's "HbA1c" levels.
• Result 2: A DiagnosticReport resource, dated 11 January, 2024, that contains notes about the "insulin regimen" that the patient must follow.

By default, Result 1 is shown higher in the results because it is a newer document, but when you order by relevance, Result 2 shows up higher in the results. This is because it is more relevant to the search query insulin.

Order your healthcare search results

To order your search results according to relevance, complete the following steps:

Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Agent Builder page.

   Agent Builder

2. Select the healthcare search app that you want to query.

3. In the navigation menu, click Preview.

4. In the Patient ID field, enter the ID of the patient whose data you want to query. Patient IDs are case-sensitive.

5. Press Enter or click Preview to submit the patient ID.

6. In the Search here search bar, enter your query.

   If you enabled autocomplete, you see a list of autocomplete suggestions below the search bar as you type.

7. Press Enter to submit the query.

   • The search results are displayed in paginated tables that are categorized based on their FHIR resource type.
   • By default, the search results for all FHIR resource types are displayed in reverse chronological order.

8. For the Composition, the DocumentReference, and the DiagnosticReport resources, click the Sort: Reverse Chronological filter and select Relevance from the list. The results for these resources are then ordered according to relevance.

REST

To order your search results according to relevance, modify your search request in the following way:

• Add the filter field to your request to limit the search results to only those FHIR resources that contain unstructured text: Composition, DiagnosticReport, and DocumentReference.
• Add the orderBy field to your search request and set its value to _RELEVANCE to get search responses that are sorted according to their relevance.

1. Send the search request.

   curl -X POST -H "Authorization: Bearer $(gcloud auth print-access-token)" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     "https://us-discoveryengine.googleapis.com/v1alpha/projects/PROJECT_ID/locations/us/collections/default_collection/engines/APP_ID/servingConfigs/default_search:search" \
     -d '{
   "query": "KEYWORD_QUERY",
   "filter": "patient_id: ANY(\"PATIENT_ID\") AND resource_type: ANY(\"Composition\", \"DiagnosticReport\", \"DocumentReference\")",
   "orderBy": "_RELEVANCE"
   }'
   

   Replace the following:

   • PROJECT_ID: the ID of your Google Cloud project.
   • APP_ID: the ID of the Vertex AI Search app that you want to query.
   • KEYWORD_QUERY: the keyword that you want to search across the patient clinical data for the filtered patient, such as "diabetes" or "a1c".
   • PATIENT_ID: the resource ID of the patient whose data you want to search.

   You should receive a JSON response that contains itemized search results listed in the order of their relevance.