Demographics and other administrative information about an individual receiving care or other health-related services.

The logical id of the resource, as used in the URL for the resource. Once assigned, this value never changes.

The only time that a resource does not have an id is when it is being submitted to the server using a create operation.

A reference to a set of rules that were followed when the resource was constructed, and which must be understood when processing the content. Often, this is a reference to an implementation guide that defines the special rules along with other profiles etc.

Asserting this rule set restricts the content to be only understood by a limited set of trading partners. This inherently limits the usefulness of the data in the long term. However, the existing health eco-system is highly fractured, and not yet ready to define, collect, and exchange data in a generally computable sense. Wherever possible, implementers and/or specification writers should avoid using this element. Often, when used, the URL is a reference to an implementation guide that defines these special rules as part of it's narrative along with other profiles, value sets, etc.

The registered place of birth of the patient. A sytem may use the address.text if they don't store the birthPlace address in discrete elements.

National Health Data Dictionary (NHDD) based indigenous status for a person.

This concept is equivalent to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data element 602543 Person—Indigenous status, code N.

Veteran / Australian Defence Force (ADF) status for a person.

This concept is equivalent to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data element 737931 Person—ADF veteran status, code N.

Indication of eligibility for the Closing the Gap co-payment.

This concept is equivalent to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data element 603671 Patient—Closing the Gap co-payment eligibility indicator.

Mother's maiden (unmarried) name, commonly collected to help verify patient identity.

This Patient requires an interpreter to communicate healthcare information to the practitioner.

The Patient does not speak the default language of the organization, and hence requires an interpreter. If the patient has other languages in the Communications list, then that would be the type of interpreter required.

The date a person first arrived in Australia, from another country, with the intention of living in Australia for one year or more. This date is captured once for a person and is not subsequently updated with subsequent arrivals.

See Australian Bureau of Statics (ABS) 1200.0.55.007 - Year of Arrival Standard, 2014, Version 1.5 for further information. This concept is equivalent to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data element 269447 Person—year of first arrival in Australia.

The gender the patient identifies with. The Patient's gender identity is used as guidance (e.g. for staff) about how to interact with the patient.

Gender identity Gender Identity Response (Extensible). See Australian Bureau of Statics (ABS) Standard for Sex, Gender, Variations of Sex Characteristics and Sexual Orientation Variables, 2020 for further materials.

An Extension

Source of the definition for the extension code - a logical name or a URL.

The definition may point directly to a computable or human-readable definition of the extensibility codes, or it may be a logical URI as declared in some other specification. The definition SHALL be a URI for the Structure Definition defining the extension.

Value of extension - must be one of a constrained set of the data types (see Extensibility for a list).

Value of extension - must be one of a constrained set of the data types (see Extensibility for a list).

The pronouns to use when referring to an individual in verbal or written communication.

A sex or gender property for the individual from a document or other record

May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the resource and that modifies the understanding of the element that contains it and/or the understanding of the containing element's descendants. Usually modifier elements provide negation or qualification. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer is allowed to define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. Applications processing a resource are required to check for modifier extensions.

Modifier extensions SHALL NOT change the meaning of any elements on Resource or DomainResource (including cannot change the meaning of modifierExtension itself).

There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.

Modifier extensions allow for extensions that cannot be safely ignored to be clearly distinguished from the vast majority of extensions which can be safely ignored. This promotes interoperability by eliminating the need for implementers to prohibit the presence of extensions. For further information, see the definition of modifier extensions.

An identifier - identifies some entity uniquely and unambiguously. Typically this is used for business identifiers.

Patients are almost always assigned specific numerical identifiers.

Individual Healthcare Identifier (IHI) assigned under the HI Service to a patient.

Patients are almost always assigned specific numerical identifiers.

Medicare card number as either the the 10 digit Medicare card number or the 11 digit number (includes the individual reference number (IRN)). A Medicare card is provided to individuals who are enrolled in Medicare.

Patients are almost always assigned specific numerical identifiers.

Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) file number displayed on a Veteran Card.

Patients are almost always assigned specific numerical identifiers.

Insurance member number assigned to an individual by an insurer as their unique member number. It is typically displayed on their insurance card and an individual will not have more than one member number per insurer. This identifier should not be confused with an insurance policy number.

Patients are almost always assigned specific numerical identifiers.

The purpose of this identifier.

Applications can assume that an identifier is permanent unless it explicitly says that it is temporary.

Identifies the purpose for this identifier, if known .

Allows the appropriate identifier for a particular context of use to be selected from among a set of identifiers.

A coded type for the identifier that can be used to determine which identifier to use for a specific purpose.

This element deals only with general categories of identifiers. It SHOULD not be used for codes that correspond 1..1 with the Identifier.system. Some identifiers may fall into multiple categories due to common usage. Where the system is known, a type is unnecessary because the type is always part of the system definition. However systems often need to handle identifiers where the system is not known. There is not a 1:1 relationship between type and system, since many different systems have the same type.

A coded type for an identifier that can be used to determine which identifier to use for a specific purpose.

Allows users to make use of identifiers when the identifier system is not known.

A reference to a code defined by a terminology system.

Codes may be defined very casually in enumerations, or code lists, up to very formal definitions such as SNOMED CT - see the HL7 v3 Core Principles for more information. Ordering of codings is undefined and SHALL NOT be used to infer meaning. Generally, at most only one of the coding values will be labeled as UserSelected = true.

Allows for alternative encodings within a code system, and translations to other code systems.

Establishes the namespace for the value - that is, a URL that describes a set values that are unique.

Identifier.system is always case sensitive.

There are many sets of identifiers. To perform matching of two identifiers, we need to know what set we're dealing with. The system identifies a particular set of unique identifiers.

The portion of the identifier typically relevant to the user and which is unique within the context of the system.

If the value is a full URI, then the system SHALL be urn:ietf:rfc:3986. The value's primary purpose is computational mapping. As a result, it may be normalized for comparison purposes (e.g. removing non-significant whitespace, dashes, etc.) A value formatted for human display can be conveyed using the Rendered Value extension. Identifier.value is to be treated as case sensitive unless knowledge of the Identifier.system allows the processer to be confident that non-case-sensitive processing is safe.

Organization that issued/manages the identifier.

The Identifier.assigner may omit the .reference element and only contain a .display element reflecting the name or other textual information about the assigning organization.

Plain text narrative that identifies the resource in addition to the resource reference.

This is generally not the same as the Resource.text of the referenced resource. The purpose is to identify what's being referenced, not to fully describe it.

Medical record number (MRN) (sometimes referred to as unit record number (URN) or (UR)) assigned by an institution to a patient’s record at that institution.

Patients are almost always assigned specific numerical identifiers.

Whether this patient record is in active use. Many systems use this property to mark as non-current patients, such as those that have not been seen for a period of time based on an organization's business rules.

It is often used to filter patient lists to exclude inactive patients

Deceased patients may also be marked as inactive for the same reasons, but may be active for some time after death.

If a record is inactive, and linked to an active record, then future patient/record updates should occur on the other patient.

Need to be able to mark a patient record as not to be used because it was created in error.

A name associated with the individual.

A patient may have multiple names with different uses or applicable periods. For animals, the name is a "HumanName" in the sense that is assigned and used by humans and has the same patterns.

Need to be able to track the patient by multiple names. Examples are your official name and a partner name.

A name associated with the individual.

A patient may have multiple names with different uses or applicable periods. For animals, the name is a "HumanName" in the sense that is assigned and used by humans and has the same patterns.

Need to be able to track the patient by multiple names. Examples are your official name and a partner name.

Identifies the purpose for this name.

Applications can assume that a name is current unless it explicitly says that it is temporary or old.

The use of a human name.

Allows the appropriate name for a particular context of use to be selected from among a set of names.

The part of a name that links to the genealogy. In some cultures (e.g. Eritrea) the family name of a son is the first name of his father.

Family Name may be decomposed into specific parts using extensions (de, nl, es related cultures).

Given name.

If only initials are recorded, they may be used in place of the full name parts. Initials may be separated into multiple given names but often aren't due to paractical limitations. This element is not called "first name" since given names do not always come first.

Part of the name that is acquired as a title due to academic, legal, employment or nobility status, etc. and that appears at the start of the name.

A contact detail (e.g. a telephone number or an email address) by which the individual may be contacted.

A Patient may have multiple ways to be contacted with different uses or applicable periods. May need to have options for contacting the person urgently and also to help with identification. The address might not go directly to the individual, but may reach another party that is able to proxy for the patient (i.e. home phone, or pet owner's phone).

People have (primary) ways to contact them in some way such as phone, email.

A contact detail (e.g. a telephone number or an email address) by which the individual may be contacted.

A Patient may have multiple ways to be contacted with different uses or applicable periods. May need to have options for contacting the person urgently and also to help with identification. The address might not go directly to the individual, but may reach another party that is able to proxy for the patient (i.e. home phone, or pet owner's phone).

People have (primary) ways to contact them in some way such as phone, email.

Telecommunications form for contact point - what communications system is required to make use of the contact.

Telecommunications form for contact point.

The actual contact point details, in a form that is meaningful to the designated communication system (i.e. phone number or email address).

Additional text data such as phone extension numbers, or notes about use of the contact are sometimes included in the value.

Need to support legacy numbers that are not in a tightly controlled format.

Identifies the purpose for the contact point.

Applications can assume that a contact is current unless it explicitly says that it is temporary or old.

Use of contact point.

Need to track the way a person uses this contact, so a user can choose which is appropriate for their purpose.

A contact detail (e.g. a telephone number or an email address) by which the individual may be contacted.

A Patient may have multiple ways to be contacted with different uses or applicable periods. May need to have options for contacting the person urgently and also to help with identification. The address might not go directly to the individual, but may reach another party that is able to proxy for the patient (i.e. home phone, or pet owner's phone).

People have (primary) ways to contact them in some way such as phone, email.

Telecommunications form for contact point - what communications system is required to make use of the contact.

Telecommunications form for contact point.

The actual contact point details, in a form that is meaningful to the designated communication system (i.e. phone number or email address).

Additional text data such as phone extension numbers, or notes about use of the contact are sometimes included in the value.

Need to support legacy numbers that are not in a tightly controlled format.

Identifies the purpose for the contact point.

Applications can assume that a contact is current unless it explicitly says that it is temporary or old.

Use of contact point.

Need to track the way a person uses this contact, so a user can choose which is appropriate for their purpose.

A contact detail (e.g. a telephone number or an email address) by which the individual may be contacted.

A Patient may have multiple ways to be contacted with different uses or applicable periods. May need to have options for contacting the person urgently and also to help with identification. The address might not go directly to the individual, but may reach another party that is able to proxy for the patient (i.e. home phone, or pet owner's phone).

People have (primary) ways to contact them in some way such as phone, email.

Telecommunications form for contact point - what communications system is required to make use of the contact.

Telecommunications form for contact point.

The actual contact point details, in a form that is meaningful to the designated communication system (i.e. phone number or email address).

Additional text data such as phone extension numbers, or notes about use of the contact are sometimes included in the value.

Need to support legacy numbers that are not in a tightly controlled format.

Identifies the purpose for the contact point.

Applications can assume that a contact is current unless it explicitly says that it is temporary or old.

Use of contact point.

Need to track the way a person uses this contact, so a user can choose which is appropriate for their purpose.

Administrative Gender - the gender that the patient is considered to have for administration and record keeping purposes.

The gender might not match the biological sex as determined by genetics or the individual's preferred identification. Note that for both humans and particularly animals, there are other legitimate possibilities than male and female, though the vast majority of systems and contexts only support male and female. Systems providing decision support or enforcing business rules should ideally do this on the basis of Observations dealing with the specific sex or gender aspect of interest (anatomical, chromosomal, social, etc.) However, because these observations are infrequently recorded, defaulting to the administrative gender is common practice. Where such defaulting occurs, rule enforcement should allow for the variation between administrative and biological, chromosomal and other gender aspects. For example, an alert about a hysterectomy on a male should be handled as a warning or overridable error, not a "hard" error. See the Patient Gender and Sex section for additional information about communicating patient gender and sex.

The gender of a person used for administrative purposes.

Needed for identification of the individual, in combination with (at least) name and birth date.

The date of birth for the individual.

At least an estimated year should be provided as a guess if the real DOB is unknown There is a standard extension "patient-birthTime" available that should be used where Time is required (such as in maternity/infant care systems).

Age of the individual drives many clinical processes. May include accuracy indicator and specific birth time.

General date accuracy indicator coding.

In some circumstances, systems may only have date or datetime data that has unknown or estimated parts. This coding establishes the accuracy of the day, month and year parts.

The time of day that the patient was born. This includes the date to ensure that the timezone information can be communicated effectively.

Indicates if the individual is deceased or not. Deceased date accuracy indicator is optional.

If there's no value in the instance, it means there is no statement on whether or not the individual is deceased. Most systems will interpret the absence of a value as a sign of the person being alive.

The fact that a patient is deceased influences the clinical process. Also, in human communication and relation management it is necessary to know whether the person is alive.

Boolean indicator if the individual is deceased or not.

If there's no value in the instance, it means there is no statement on whether or not the individual is deceased. Most systems will interpret the absence of a value as a sign of the person being alive.

The fact that a patient is deceased influences the clinical process. Also, in human communication and relation management it is necessary to know whether the person is alive.

Individual deceased date-time with optional accuracy indicator.

If there's no value in the instance, it means there is no statement on whether or not the individual is deceased. Most systems will interpret the absence of a value as a sign of the person being alive.

The fact that a patient is deceased influences the clinical process. Also, in human communication and relation management it is necessary to know whether the person is alive.

General date accuracy indicator coding.

In some circumstances, systems may only have date or datetime data that has unknown or estimated parts. This coding establishes the accuracy of the day, month and year parts.

An Australian address expressed using postal conventions (as opposed to GPS or other location definition formats).

The address is intended to describe postal addresses for administrative purposes, not to describe absolute geographical coordinates. Postal addresses are often used as proxies for physical locations (also see the Location resource).

May need to keep track of patient addresses for contacting, billing or reporting requirements and also to help with identification.

An Australian address expressed using postal conventions (as opposed to GPS or other location definition formats).

Note: address is intended to describe postal addresses for administrative purposes, not to describe absolute geographical coordinates. Postal addresses are often used as proxies for physical locations (also see the Location resource).

May need to keep track of patient addresses for contacting, billing or reporting requirements and also to help with identification.

A unique identifier associated with a location address and may be used to look up an address, validate an address, or link to other data relating to an address.

Source of the definition for the extension code - a logical name or a URL.

The definition may point directly to a computable or human-readable definition of the extensibility codes, or it may be a logical URI as declared in some other specification. The definition SHALL be a URI for the Structure Definition defining the extension.

An identifier - identifies some entity uniquely and unambiguously. Typically this is used for business identifiers.

No fixed address indicator.

The purpose of this address.

Applications can assume that an address is current unless it explicitly says that it is temporary or old.

The use of an address.

Allows an appropriate address to be chosen from a list of many.

Distinguishes between physical addresses (those you can visit) and mailing addresses (e.g. PO Boxes and care-of addresses). Most addresses are both.

The definition of Address states that "address is intended to describe postal addresses, not physical locations". However, many applications track whether an address has a dual purpose of being a location that can be visited as well as being a valid delivery destination, and Postal addresses are often used as proxies for physical locations (also see the Location resource).

The type of an address (physical / postal).

Specifies the entire address as it should be displayed e.g. on a postal label. This may be provided instead of or as well as the specific parts.

Can provide both a text representation and parts. Applications updating an address SHALL ensure that when both text and parts are present, no content is included in the text that isn't found in a part.

A renderable, unencoded form.

This component contains the house number, apartment number, street name, street direction, P.O. Box number, delivery hints, and similar address information.

Patient's nominated care provider.

This may be the primary care provider (in a GP context), or it may be a patient nominated care manager in a community/disability setting, or even organization that will provide people to perform the care provider roles. It is not to be used to record Care Teams, these should be in a CareTeam resource that may be linked to the CarePlan or EpisodeOfCare resources. Multiple GPs may be recorded against the patient for various reasons, such as a student that has his home GP listed along with the GP at university during the school semesters, or a "fly-in/fly-out" worker that has the onsite GP also included with his home GP to remain aware of medical issues.

Jurisdictions may decide that they can profile this down to 1 if desired, or 1 per type.

Organization that is the custodian of the patient record.

There is only one managing organization for a specific patient record. Other organizations will have their own Patient record, and may use the Link property to join the records together (or a Person resource which can include confidence ratings for the association).

Need to know who recognizes this patient record, manages and updates it.

Plain text narrative that identifies the resource in addition to the resource reference.

This is generally not the same as the Resource.text of the referenced resource. The purpose is to identify what's being referenced, not to fully describe it.

Link to a Patient or RelatedPerson resource that concerns the same actual person.

There is no assumption that linked patient records have mutual links.

There are multiple use cases:

• Duplicate patient records due to the clerical errors associated with the difficulties of identifying humans consistently, and
• Distribution of patient information across multiple servers.

May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the element and that modifies the understanding of the element in which it is contained and/or the understanding of the containing element's descendants. Usually modifier elements provide negation or qualification. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. Applications processing a resource are required to check for modifier extensions.

Modifier extensions SHALL NOT change the meaning of any elements on Resource or DomainResource (including cannot change the meaning of modifierExtension itself).

There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.

Modifier extensions allow for extensions that cannot be safely ignored to be clearly distinguished from the vast majority of extensions which can be safely ignored. This promotes interoperability by eliminating the need for implementers to prohibit the presence of extensions. For further information, see the definition of modifier extensions.

The other patient resource that the link refers to.

Referencing a RelatedPerson here removes the need to use a Person record to associate a Patient and RelatedPerson as the same individual.

The type of link between this patient resource and another patient resource.

The type of link between this patient resource and another patient resource.

Demographics and other administrative information about an individual receiving care or other health-related services.

The logical id of the resource, as used in the URL for the resource. Once assigned, this value never changes.

The only time that a resource does not have an id is when it is being submitted to the server using a create operation.

The metadata about the resource. This is content that is maintained by the infrastructure. Changes to the content might not always be associated with version changes to the resource.

A reference to a set of rules that were followed when the resource was constructed, and which must be understood when processing the content. Often, this is a reference to an implementation guide that defines the special rules along with other profiles etc.

Asserting this rule set restricts the content to be only understood by a limited set of trading partners. This inherently limits the usefulness of the data in the long term. However, the existing health eco-system is highly fractured, and not yet ready to define, collect, and exchange data in a generally computable sense. Wherever possible, implementers and/or specification writers should avoid using this element. Often, when used, the URL is a reference to an implementation guide that defines these special rules as part of it's narrative along with other profiles, value sets, etc.

The base language in which the resource is written.

Language is provided to support indexing and accessibility (typically, services such as text to speech use the language tag). The html language tag in the narrative applies to the narrative. The language tag on the resource may be used to specify the language of other presentations generated from the data in the resource. Not all the content has to be in the base language. The Resource.language should not be assumed to apply to the narrative automatically. If a language is specified, it should it also be specified on the div element in the html (see rules in HTML5 for information about the relationship between xml:lang and the html lang attribute).

A human language.

A human-readable narrative that contains a summary of the resource and can be used to represent the content of the resource to a human. The narrative need not encode all the structured data, but is required to contain sufficient detail to make it "clinically safe" for a human to just read the narrative. Resource definitions may define what content should be represented in the narrative to ensure clinical safety.

Contained resources do not have narrative. Resources that are not contained SHOULD have a narrative. In some cases, a resource may only have text with little or no additional discrete data (as long as all minOccurs=1 elements are satisfied). This may be necessary for data from legacy systems where information is captured as a "text blob" or where text is additionally entered raw or narrated and encoded information is added later.

These resources do not have an independent existence apart from the resource that contains them - they cannot be identified independently, and nor can they have their own independent transaction scope.

This should never be done when the content can be identified properly, as once identification is lost, it is extremely difficult (and context dependent) to restore it again. Contained resources may have profiles and tags In their meta elements, but SHALL NOT have security labels.

An Extension

The registered place of birth of the patient. A sytem may use the address.text if they don't store the birthPlace address in discrete elements.

National Health Data Dictionary (NHDD) based indigenous status for a person.

This concept is equivalent to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data element 602543 Person—Indigenous status, code N.

Veteran / Australian Defence Force (ADF) status for a person.

This concept is equivalent to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data element 737931 Person—ADF veteran status, code N.

Indication of eligibility for the Closing the Gap co-payment.

This concept is equivalent to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data element 603671 Patient—Closing the Gap co-payment eligibility indicator.

Mother's maiden (unmarried) name, commonly collected to help verify patient identity.

This Patient requires an interpreter to communicate healthcare information to the practitioner.

The Patient does not speak the default language of the organization, and hence requires an interpreter. If the patient has other languages in the Communications list, then that would be the type of interpreter required.

The date a person first arrived in Australia, from another country, with the intention of living in Australia for one year or more. This date is captured once for a person and is not subsequently updated with subsequent arrivals.

See Australian Bureau of Statics (ABS) 1200.0.55.007 - Year of Arrival Standard, 2014, Version 1.5 for further information. This concept is equivalent to Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data element 269447 Person—year of first arrival in Australia.

The gender the patient identifies with. The Patient's gender identity is used as guidance (e.g. for staff) about how to interact with the patient.

Gender identity Gender Identity Response (Extensible). See Australian Bureau of Statics (ABS) Standard for Sex, Gender, Variations of Sex Characteristics and Sexual Orientation Variables, 2020 for further materials.

Unique id for the element within a resource (for internal references). This may be any string value that does not contain spaces.

An Extension

Source of the definition for the extension code - a logical name or a URL.

The definition may point directly to a computable or human-readable definition of the extensibility codes, or it may be a logical URI as declared in some other specification. The definition SHALL be a URI for the Structure Definition defining the extension.

Value of extension - must be one of a constrained set of the data types (see Extensibility for a list).

Value of extension - must be one of a constrained set of the data types (see Extensibility for a list).

The pronouns to use when referring to an individual in verbal or written communication.

A sex or gender property for the individual from a document or other record

May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the resource and that modifies the understanding of the element that contains it and/or the understanding of the containing element's descendants. Usually modifier elements provide negation or qualification. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer is allowed to define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. Applications processing a resource are required to check for modifier extensions.

Modifier extensions SHALL NOT change the meaning of any elements on Resource or DomainResource (including cannot change the meaning of modifierExtension itself).

There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.

Modifier extensions allow for extensions that cannot be safely ignored to be clearly distinguished from the vast majority of extensions which can be safely ignored. This promotes interoperability by eliminating the need for implementers to prohibit the presence of extensions. For further information, see the definition of modifier extensions.

An identifier - identifies some entity uniquely and unambiguously. Typically this is used for business identifiers.

Patients are almost always assigned specific numerical identifiers.

Individual Healthcare Identifier (IHI) assigned under the HI Service to a patient.

Patients are almost always assigned specific numerical identifiers.

Medicare card number as either the the 10 digit Medicare card number or the 11 digit number (includes the individual reference number (IRN)). A Medicare card is provided to individuals who are enrolled in Medicare.

Patients are almost always assigned specific numerical identifiers.

Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) file number displayed on a Veteran Card.

Patients are almost always assigned specific numerical identifiers.

Insurance member number assigned to an individual by an insurer as their unique member number. It is typically displayed on their insurance card and an individual will not have more than one member number per insurer. This identifier should not be confused with an insurance policy number.

Patients are almost always assigned specific numerical identifiers.

Unique id for the element within a resource (for internal references). This may be any string value that does not contain spaces.

May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the element. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension.

There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.

The purpose of this identifier.

Applications can assume that an identifier is permanent unless it explicitly says that it is temporary.

Identifies the purpose for this identifier, if known .

Allows the appropriate identifier for a particular context of use to be selected from among a set of identifiers.

A coded type for the identifier that can be used to determine which identifier to use for a specific purpose.

This element deals only with general categories of identifiers. It SHOULD not be used for codes that correspond 1..1 with the Identifier.system. Some identifiers may fall into multiple categories due to common usage. Where the system is known, a type is unnecessary because the type is always part of the system definition. However systems often need to handle identifiers where the system is not known. There is not a 1:1 relationship between type and system, since many different systems have the same type.

A coded type for an identifier that can be used to determine which identifier to use for a specific purpose.

Allows users to make use of identifiers when the identifier system is not known.

Unique id for the element within a resource (for internal references). This may be any string value that does not contain spaces.

May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the element. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension.

There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.

A reference to a code defined by a terminology system.

Codes may be defined very casually in enumerations, or code lists, up to very formal definitions such as SNOMED CT - see the HL7 v3 Core Principles for more information. Ordering of codings is undefined and SHALL NOT be used to infer meaning. Generally, at most only one of the coding values will be labeled as UserSelected = true.

Allows for alternative encodings within a code system, and translations to other code systems.

A human language representation of the concept as seen/selected/uttered by the user who entered the data and/or which represents the intended meaning of the user.

Very often the text is the same as a displayName of one of the codings.

The codes from the terminologies do not always capture the correct meaning with all the nuances of the human using them, or sometimes there is no appropriate code at all. In these cases, the text is used to capture the full meaning of the source.

Establishes the namespace for the value - that is, a URL that describes a set values that are unique.

Identifier.system is always case sensitive.

There are many sets of identifiers. To perform matching of two identifiers, we need to know what set we're dealing with. The system identifies a particular set of unique identifiers.

The portion of the identifier typically relevant to the user and which is unique within the context of the system.

If the value is a full URI, then the system SHALL be urn:ietf:rfc:3986. The value's primary purpose is computational mapping. As a result, it may be normalized for comparison purposes (e.g. removing non-significant whitespace, dashes, etc.) A value formatted for human display can be conveyed using the Rendered Value extension. Identifier.value is to be treated as case sensitive unless knowledge of the Identifier.system allows the processer to be confident that non-case-sensitive processing is safe.

Time period during which identifier is/was valid for use.

Organization that issued/manages the identifier.

The Identifier.assigner may omit the .reference element and only contain a .display element reflecting the name or other textual information about the assigning organization.

Unique id for the element within a resource (for internal references). This may be any string value that does not contain spaces.

May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the element. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension.

There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.

A reference to a location at which the other resource is found. The reference may be a relative reference, in which case it is relative to the service base URL, or an absolute URL that resolves to the location where the resource is found. The reference may be version specific or not. If the reference is not to a FHIR RESTful server, then it should be assumed to be version specific. Internal fragment references (start with '#') refer to contained resources.

Using absolute URLs provides a stable scalable approach suitable for a cloud/web context, while using relative/logical references provides a flexible approach suitable for use when trading across closed eco-system boundaries. Absolute URLs do not need to point to a FHIR RESTful server, though this is the preferred approach. If the URL conforms to the structure "/[type]/[id]" then it should be assumed that the reference is to a FHIR RESTful server.

The expected type of the target of the reference. If both Reference.type and Reference.reference are populated and Reference.reference is a FHIR URL, both SHALL be consistent.

The type is the Canonical URL of Resource Definition that is the type this reference refers to. References are URLs that are relative to http://hl7.org/fhir/StructureDefinition/ e.g. "Patient" is a reference to http://hl7.org/fhir/StructureDefinition/Patient. Absolute URLs are only allowed for logical models (and can only be used in references in logical models, not resources).

This element is used to indicate the type of the target of the reference. This may be used which ever of the other elements are populated (or not). In some cases, the type of the target may be determined by inspection of the reference (e.g. a RESTful URL) or by resolving the target of the reference; if both the type and a reference is provided, the reference SHALL resolve to a resource of the same type as that specified.

Aa resource (or, for logical models, the URI of the logical model).

An identifier for the target resource. This is used when there is no way to reference the other resource directly, either because the entity it represents is not available through a FHIR server, or because there is no way for the author of the resource to convert a known identifier to an actual location. There is no requirement that a Reference.identifier point to something that is actually exposed as a FHIR instance, but it SHALL point to a business concept that would be expected to be exposed as a FHIR instance, and that instance would need to be of a FHIR resource type allowed by the reference.

When an identifier is provided in place of a reference, any system processing the reference will only be able to resolve the identifier to a reference if it understands the business context in which the identifier is used. Sometimes this is global (e.g. a national identifier) but often it is not. For this reason, none of the useful mechanisms described for working with references (e.g. chaining, includes) are possible, nor should servers be expected to be able resolve the reference. Servers may accept an identifier based reference untouched, resolve it, and/or reject it - see CapabilityStatement.rest.resource.referencePolicy.

When both an identifier and a literal reference are provided, the literal reference is preferred. Applications processing the resource are allowed - but not required - to check that the identifier matches the literal reference

Applications converting a logical reference to a literal reference may choose to leave the logical reference present, or remove it.

Reference is intended to point to a structure that can potentially be expressed as a FHIR resource, though there is no need for it to exist as an actual FHIR resource instance - except in as much as an application wishes to actual find the target of the reference. The content referred to be the identifier must meet the logical constraints implied by any limitations on what resource types are permitted for the reference. For example, it would not be legitimate to send the identifier for a drug prescription if the type were Reference(Observation|DiagnosticReport). One of the use-cases for Reference.identifier is the situation where no FHIR representation exists (where the type is Reference (Any).

Plain text narrative that identifies the resource in addition to the resource reference.

This is generally not the same as the Resource.text of the referenced resource. The purpose is to identify what's being referenced, not to fully describe it.