A formally or informally recognized grouping of people or organizations formed for the purpose of achieving some form of collective action. Includes companies, institutions, corporations, departments, community groups, healthcare practice groups, payer/insurer, etc.

A reference to a set of rules that were followed when the resource was constructed, and which must be understood when processing the content. Often, this is a reference to an implementation guide that defines the special rules along with other profiles etc.

Asserting this rule set restricts the content to be only understood by a limited set of trading partners. This inherently limits the usefulness of the data in the long term. However, the existing health eco-system is highly fractured, and not yet ready to define, collect, and exchange data in a generally computable sense. Wherever possible, implementers and/or specification writers should avoid using this element. Often, when used, the URL is a reference to an implementation guide that defines these special rules as part of it's narrative along with other profiles, value sets, etc.

A human-readable narrative that contains a summary of the resource and can be used to represent the content of the resource to a human. The narrative need not encode all the structured data, but is required to contain sufficient detail to make it "clinically safe" for a human to just read the narrative. Resource definitions may define what content should be represented in the narrative to ensure clinical safety.

Contained resources do not have narrative. Resources that are not contained SHOULD have a narrative. In some cases, a resource may only have text with little or no additional discrete data (as long as all minOccurs=1 elements are satisfied). This may be necessary for data from legacy systems where information is captured as a "text blob" or where text is additionally entered raw or narrated and encoded information is added later.

May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the resource and that modifies the understanding of the element that contains it and/or the understanding of the containing element's descendants. Usually modifier elements provide negation or qualification. To make the use of extensions safe and manageable, there is a strict set of governance applied to the definition and use of extensions. Though any implementer is allowed to define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. Applications processing a resource are required to check for modifier extensions.

Modifier extensions SHALL NOT change the meaning of any elements on Resource or DomainResource (including cannot change the meaning of modifierExtension itself).

Modifier extensions allow for extensions that cannot be safely ignored to be clearly distinguished from the vast majority of extensions which can be safely ignored. This promotes interoperability by eliminating the need for implementers to prohibit the presence of extensions. For further information, see the definition of modifier extensions.

There can be no stigma associated with the use of extensions by any application, project, or standard - regardless of the institution or jurisdiction that uses or defines the extensions. The use of extensions is what allows the FHIR specification to retain a core level of simplicity for everyone.

Identifier for the organization that is used to identify the organization across multiple disparate systems.

Organizations are known by a variety of ids. Some institutions maintain several, and most collect identifiers for exchange with other organizations concerning the organization.

The purpose of this identifier.

Identifies the purpose for this identifier, if known .

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.

A coded type for an 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.

Whether the organization's record is still in active use.

Need a flag to indicate a record is no longer to be used and should generally be hidden for the user in the UI.

This active flag is not intended to be used to mark an organization as temporarily closed or under construction. Instead the Location(s) within the Organization should have the suspended status. If further details of the reason for the suspension are required, then an extension on this element should be used.

This element is labeled as a modifier because it may be used to mark that the resource was created in error.

The kind(s) of organization that this is.

Used to categorize the organization.

Need to be able to track the kind of organization that this is - different organization types have different uses.

Organizations can be corporations, wards, sections, clinical teams, government departments, etc. Note that code is generally a classifier of the type of organization; in many applications, codes are used to identity a particular organization (say, ward) as opposed to another of the same type - these are identifiers, not codes

When considering if multiple types are appropriate, you should evaluate if child organizations would be a more appropriate use of the concept, as different types likely are in different sub-areas of the organization. This is most likely to be used where type values have orthogonal values, such as a religious, academic and medical center.

We expect that some jurisdictions will profile this optionality to be a single cardinality.

A name associated with the organization.

Need to use the name as the label of the organization.

If the name of an organization changes, consider putting the old name in the alias column so that it can still be located through searches.

A contact detail for the organization.

Human contact for the organization.

The use code 'home' is not to be used. Note that these contacts are not the contact details of people who are employed by or represent the organization, but official contacts for the organization itself.

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

Telecommunications form for contact point.

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.

Use of 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.