A code classifying the person's sex assigned at birth as specified by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).

The codes required are intended to present birth sex (i.e., the sex recorded on the patient’s birth certificate) and not gender identity or reassigned sex.

The purpose of this identifier.

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

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

A coded type for the 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.

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.

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

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.

Identifier.system is always case sensitive.

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.

A Period specifies a range of time; the context of use will specify whether the entire range applies (e.g. "the patient was an inpatient of the hospital for this time range") or one value from the range applies (e.g. "give to the patient between these two times").

Period is not used for a duration (a measure of elapsed time). See Duration.

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.

The purpose of this identifier.

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

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

A coded type for the 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.

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.

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

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.

Identifier.system is always case sensitive.

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.

A Period specifies a range of time; the context of use will specify whether the entire range applies (e.g. "the patient was an inpatient of the hospital for this time range") or one value from the range applies (e.g. "give to the patient between these two times").

Period is not used for a duration (a measure of elapsed time). See Duration.

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.

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.

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

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

Identifies the purpose for this name.

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

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

Specifies the entire name as it should be displayed e.g. on an application UI. This may be provided instead of or as well as the specific parts.

A renderable, unencoded form.

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

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.

Note that FHIR strings SHALL NOT exceed 1MB in size

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

Note that FHIR strings SHALL NOT exceed 1MB in size

Indicates the period of time when this name was valid for the named person.

Allows names to be placed in historical context.

A Period specifies a range of time; the context of use will specify whether the entire range applies (e.g. "the patient was an inpatient of the hospital for this time range") or one value from the range applies (e.g. "give to the patient between these two times").

Period is not used for a duration (a measure of elapsed time). See Duration.

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

Note that FHIR strings SHALL NOT exceed 1MB in size

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

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

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

Identifies the purpose for the contact point.

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

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

Specifies a preferred order in which to use a set of contacts. ContactPoints with lower rank values are more preferred than those with higher rank values.

Note that rank does not necessarily follow the order in which the contacts are represented in the instance.

Time period when the contact point was/is in use.

A Period specifies a range of time; the context of use will specify whether the entire range applies (e.g. "the patient was an inpatient of the hospital for this time range") or one value from the range applies (e.g. "give to the patient between these two times").

Period is not used for a duration (a measure of elapsed time). See Duration.

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

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

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 date of birth for the individual.

Age of the individual drives many clinical processes.

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).

The purpose of this address.

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

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

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).

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.

A renderable, unencoded form.

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.

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

Note that FHIR strings SHALL NOT exceed 1MB in size

The name of the city, town, suburb, village or other community or delivery center.

Note that FHIR strings SHALL NOT exceed 1MB in size

The name of the administrative area (county).

District is sometimes known as county, but in some regions 'county' is used in place of city (municipality), so county name should be conveyed in city instead.

Sub-unit of a country with limited sovereignty in a federally organized country. A code may be used if codes are in common use (e.g. US 2 letter state codes).

Note that FHIR strings SHALL NOT exceed 1MB in size

A postal code designating a region defined by the postal service.

Note that FHIR strings SHALL NOT exceed 1MB in size

Country - a nation as commonly understood or generally accepted.

ISO 3166 3 letter codes can be used in place of a human readable country name.

Time period when address was/is in use.

Allows addresses to be placed in historical context.

A Period specifies a range of time; the context of use will specify whether the entire range applies (e.g. "the patient was an inpatient of the hospital for this time range") or one value from the range applies (e.g. "give to the patient between these two times").

Period is not used for a duration (a measure of elapsed time). See Duration.

This field contains a patient's most recent marital (civil) status.

Most, if not all systems capture it.

Not all terminology uses fit this general pattern. In some cases, models should not use CodeableConcept and use Coding directly and provide their own structure for managing text, codings, translations and the relationship between elements and pre- and post-coordination.

The nature of the relationship between the patient and the contact person.

Used to determine which contact person is the most relevant to approach, depending on circumstances.

Not all terminology uses fit this general pattern. In some cases, models should not use CodeableConcept and use Coding directly and provide their own structure for managing text, codings, translations and the relationship between elements and pre- and post-coordination.

A name associated with the contact person.

Contact persons need to be identified by name, but it is uncommon to need details about multiple other names for that contact person.

Names may be changed, or repudiated, or people may have different names in different contexts. Names may be divided into parts of different type that have variable significance depending on context, though the division into parts does not always matter. With personal names, the different parts might or might not be imbued with some implicit meaning; various cultures associate different importance with the name parts and the degree to which systems must care about name parts around the world varies widely.

A contact detail for the person, e.g. a telephone number or an email address.

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

Contact 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.

Address for the contact person.

Need to keep track where the contact person can be contacted per postal mail or visited.

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).

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

Needed to address the person correctly.

Note that FHIR strings SHALL NOT exceed 1MB in size

Organization on behalf of which the contact is acting or for which the contact is working.

For guardians or business related contacts, the organization is relevant.

References SHALL be a reference to an actual FHIR resource, and SHALL be resolveable (allowing for access control, temporary unavailability, etc.). Resolution can be either by retrieval from the URL, or, where applicable by resource type, by treating an absolute reference as a canonical URL and looking it up in a local registry/repository.

The period during which this contact person or organization is valid to be contacted relating to this patient.

A Period specifies a range of time; the context of use will specify whether the entire range applies (e.g. "the patient was an inpatient of the hospital for this time range") or one value from the range applies (e.g. "give to the patient between these two times").

Period is not used for a duration (a measure of elapsed time). See Duration.

The ISO-639-1 alpha 2 code in lower case for the language, optionally followed by a hyphen and the ISO-3166-1 alpha 2 code for the region in upper case; e.g. "en" for English, or "en-US" for American English versus "en-EN" for England English.

Most systems in multilingual countries will want to convey language. Not all systems actually need the regional dialect.

The structure aa-BB with this exact casing is one the most widely used notations for locale. However not all systems actually code this but instead have it as free text. Hence CodeableConcept instead of code as the data type.

Indicates whether or not the patient prefers this language (over other languages he masters up a certain level).

People that master multiple languages up to certain level may prefer one or more, i.e. feel more confident in communicating in a particular language making other languages sort of a fall back method.

This language is specifically identified for communicating healthcare 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.

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

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).

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.

Note that FHIR strings SHALL NOT exceed 1MB in size