How to handle times
- All times MUST be in FHIR Instant format (
YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss.sssssss+zz:zz)- e.g.
Year-Month-DayTHours:Minutes:Seconds.milliseconds+OffsetFromUTC - e.g.
2015-02-07T13:28:17.2398742+02:00 - except where specifically defined otherwise
- e.g.
- All times can have up to seven digits resolution for milliseconds
- All times SHOULD be converted to UTC from local times (if not stored locally in UTC) before being included in any messages, this means the offset should be zero
- When receiving a time in a message a system MUST expect and handle a non UTC time (e.g. with a non-zero offset)
- Therefore if a time is received that is not UTC, the receiver should convert the time back to UTC using the offset given (or to their local time, if storing times in a local time)
Important:
This means both Sender and Receiver systems MUST be able to handle a time provided with an offset from UTC that differs from your local server time. As an illustration, if you store all times in UTC and someone uses a time specifying an offset, you will need to convert it to UTC when you store it.