Person - FHIR v4.0.1

Release 4

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8.18.13 Resource Person - Detailed Descriptions

Patient Administration

Work Group

Maturity Level: 2

Trial Use

Security Category: Patient

Compartments: Patient, Practitioner, RelatedPerson

Detailed Descriptions for the elements in the Person resource.

Person
Element Id	Person
Definition	Demographics and administrative information about a person independent of a specific health-related context.
Cardinality	0..*
Type	DomainResource
Requirements	Need to track persons potentially across multiple roles.
Comments	The Person resource does justice to person registries that keep track of persons regardless of their role. The Person resource is also a primary resource to point to for people acting in a particular role such as SubjectofCare, Practitioner, and Agent. Very few attributes are specific to any role and so Person is kept lean. Most attributes are expected to be tied to the role the Person plays rather than the Person himself. Examples of that are Guardian (SubjectofCare), ContactParty (SubjectOfCare, Practitioner), and multipleBirthInd (SubjectofCare).
Person.identifier
Element Id	Person.identifier
Definition	Identifier for a person within a particular scope.
Note	This is a business identifier, not a resource identifier (see discussion)
Cardinality	0..*
Type	Identifier
Requirements	People are known by a variety of ids. Some institutions maintain several, and most collect identifiers for exchange with other organizations concerning the person. Examples are national person identifier and local identifier.
Person.name
Element Id	Person.name
Definition	A name associated with the person.
Cardinality	0..*
Type	HumanName
Requirements	Need to be able to track the person by multiple names. Examples are your official name and a partner name.
Summary	true
Comments	Person may have multiple names with different uses or applicable periods.
Person.telecom
Element Id	Person.telecom
Definition	A contact detail for the person, e.g. a telephone number or an email address.
Cardinality	0..*
Type	ContactPoint
Requirements	People have (primary) ways to contact them in some way such as phone, email.
Summary	true
Comments	Person 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.
Person.gender
Element Id	Person.gender
Definition	Administrative Gender.
Cardinality	0..1
Terminology Binding	AdministrativeGender (Required)
Type	code
Requirements	Needed for identification of the person, in combination with (at least) name and birth date. Gender of person drives many clinical processes.
Summary	true
Comments	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 M and F, though a clear majority of systems and contexts only support M and F.
Person.birthDate
Element Id	Person.birthDate
Definition	The birth date for the person.
Cardinality	0..1
Type	date
Requirements	Age of person drives many clinical processes, and is often used in performing identification of the person. Times are not included so as to not confuse things with potential timezone issues.
Summary	true
Comments	At least an estimated year should be provided as a guess if the real DOB is unknown.
Person.address
Element Id	Person.address
Definition	One or more addresses for the person.
Cardinality	0..*
Type	Address
Requirements	May need to keep track of person's addresses for contacting, billing or reporting requirements and also to help with identification.
Comments	Person may have multiple addresses with different uses or applicable periods.
Person.photo
Element Id	Person.photo
Definition	An image that can be displayed as a thumbnail of the person to enhance the identification of the individual.
Cardinality	0..1
Type	Attachment
Person.managingOrganization
Element Id	Person.managingOrganization
Definition	The organization that is the custodian of the person record.
Cardinality	0..1
Type	Reference(Organization)
Requirements	Need to know who recognizes this person record, manages and updates it.
Summary	true
Person.active
Element Id	Person.active
Definition	Whether this person's record is in active use.
Cardinality	0..1
Type	boolean
Is Modifier	true (Reason: This element is labelled as a modifier because it is a status element that can indicate that a record should not be treated as valid)
Requirements	Need to be able to mark a person record as not to be used because it was created in error.
Summary	true
Person.link
Element Id	Person.link
Definition	Link to a resource that concerns the same actual person.
Cardinality	0..*
Person.link.target
Element Id	Person.link.target
Definition	The resource to which this actual person is associated.
Cardinality	1..1
Type	Reference(Patient \| Practitioner \| RelatedPerson \| Person)
Person.link.assurance
Element Id	Person.link.assurance
Definition	Level of assurance that this link is associated with the target resource.
Cardinality	0..1
Terminology Binding	IdentityAssuranceLevel (Required)
Type	code