Stream: conformance
Topic: Identifier slicing discriminator
Simone Heckmann (Jun 13 2017 at 18:47):
How do we define a slicing discriminator for Patient.identifier, if we want one slice to be a national identifier (no type, fixed system) and the other slice to be a driver's licence number (type=DL, no fixed system)?
Lloyd McKenzie (Jun 13 2017 at 19:57):
Why no type for the national identifier?
Grahame Grieve (Jun 13 2017 at 22:37):
both system and type.coding.code
Simone Heckmann (Jun 16 2017 at 08:13):
@Lloyd McKenzie
because
a) Spec says:
This element deals only with general categories of identifiers. It SHOULD not be used for codes that correspond 1..1 with the Identifier.system. [..]
Where the system is known, a type is unnecessary because the type is always part of the system definition.
http://hl7.org/implement/standards/fhir/datatypes-definitions.html#Identifier.type
b) There is no appropritate code for "National Identifier" in identifier-type, which emphasizes a)
http://hl7.org/implement/standards/fhir/valueset-identifier-type.html
c) adding a mandatory type code, just for the sake of having a slicing discriminator makes a very simple and common use case unnecessarily complicated for the implementers. Patient.identifier is going to be among the first things, any FHIR newbee will have to tackle. The simpler it is, the better.
Last updated: Apr 12 2022 at 19:14 UTC
