Structure Definition: DocumentReference

Document identifier as assigned by the source of the document. This identifier is specific to this version of the document. This unique identifier may be used elsewhere to identify this version of the document.

The structure and format of this Id shall be consistent with the specification corresponding to the formatCode attribute. (e.g. for a DICOM standard document a 64-character numeric UID, for an HL7 CDA format a serialization of the CDA Document Id extension and root in the form "oid^extension", where OID is a 64 digits max, and the Id is a 16 UTF-8 char max. If the OID is coded without the extension then the '^' character shall not be included.).

CDA Document Id extension and root.

Other identifiers associated with the document, including version independent identifiers.

The status of this document reference.

This is the status of the DocumentReference object, which might be independent from the docStatus element.

This element is labeled as a modifier because the status contains the codes that mark the document or reference as not currently valid.

The status of the underlying document.

The document that is pointed to might be in various lifecycle states.

Specifies the particular kind of document referenced (e.g. History and Physical, Discharge Summary, Progress Note). This usually equates to the purpose of making the document referenced.

Key metadata element describing the document that describes he exact type of document. Helps humans to assess whether the document is of interest when viewing a list of documents.

Who or what the document is about. The document can be about a person, (patient or healthcare practitioner), a device (e.g. a machine) or even a group of subjects (such as a document about a herd of farm animals, or a set of patients that share a common exposure).

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.

When the document reference was created.

Referencing/indexing time is used for tracking, organizing versions and searching.

Identifies who is responsible for adding the information to the document.

Not necessarily who did the actual data entry (i.e. typist) or who was the source (informant).

Which person or organization authenticates that this document is valid.

Represents a participant within the author institution who has legally authenticated or attested the document. Legal authentication implies that a document has been signed manually or electronically by the legal Authenticator.

Identifies the organization or group who is responsible for ongoing maintenance of and access to the document.

Identifies the logical organization (software system, vendor, or department) to go to find the current version, where to report issues, etc. This is different from the physical location (URL, disk drive, or server) of the document, which is the technical location of the document, which host may be delegated to the management of some other organization.

The type of relationship that this document has with anther document.

If this document appends another document, then the document cannot be fully understood without also accessing the referenced document.

The target document of this relationship.

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.

Human-readable description of the source document.

Helps humans to assess whether the document is of interest.

What the document is about, a terse summary of the document.

A set of Security-Tag codes specifying the level of privacy/security of the Document. Note that DocumentReference.meta.security contains the security labels of the "reference" to the document, while DocumentReference.securityLabel contains a snapshot of the security labels on the document the reference refers to.

Use of the Health Care Privacy/Security Classification (HCS) system of security-tag use is recommended.

The confidentiality codes can carry multiple vocabulary items. HL7 has developed an understanding of security and privacy tags that might be desirable in a Document Sharing environment, called HL7 Healthcare Privacy and Security Classification System (HCS). The following specification is recommended but not mandated, as the vocabulary bindings are an administrative domain responsibility. The use of this method is up to the policy domain such as the XDS Affinity Domain or other Trust Domain where all parties including sender and recipients are trusted to appropriately tag and enforce.

In the HL7 Healthcare Privacy and Security Classification (HCS) there are code systems specific to Confidentiality, Sensitivity, Integrity, and Handling Caveats. Some values would come from a local vocabulary as they are related to workflow roles and special projects.

The document or URL of the document along with critical metadata to prove content has integrity.

When providing a summary view (for example with Observation.value[x]) Attachment should be represented with a brief display text such as "Signed Procedure Consent".

An identifier of the document encoding, structure, and template that the document conforms to beyond the base format indicated in the mimeType.

Note that while IHE mostly issues URNs for format types, not all documents can be identified by a URI.

Describes the clinical encounter or type of care that the document content is associated with.

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.

This list of codes represents the main clinical acts, such as a colonoscopy or an appendectomy, being documented. In some cases, the event is inherent in the type Code, such as a "History and Physical Report" in which the procedure being documented is necessarily a "History and Physical" act.

An event can further specialize the act inherent in the type, such as where it is simply "Procedure Report" and the procedure was a "colonoscopy". If one or more event codes are included, they shall not conflict with the values inherent in the class or type elements as such a conflict would create an ambiguous situation.

The time period over which the service that is described by the document was provided.

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 kind of facility where the patient was seen.

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.

This property may convey specifics about the practice setting where the content was created, often reflecting the clinical specialty.

This is an important piece of metadata that providers often rely upon to quickly sort and/or filter out to find specific content.

This element should be based on a coarse classification system for the class of specialty practice. Recommend the use of the classification system for Practice Setting, such as that described by the Subject Matter Domain in LOINC.

The Patient Information as known when the document was published. May be a reference to a version specific, or contained.

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.

Related identifiers or resources associated with the DocumentReference.

May be identifiers or resources that caused the DocumentReference or referenced Document to be created.