Person

Demographics and administrative information about a person independent of a specific health-related context.

Schema

Elements

Name	Required	Type	Description
identifier		Identifier[]	A human identifier for this person Details Identifier for a person within a particular scope.
name		HumanName[]	A name associated with the person Details A name associated with the person. Person may have multiple names with different uses or applicable periods.
telecom		ContactPoint[]	A contact detail for the person Details A contact detail for the person, e.g. a telephone number or an email address. 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.
gender		code	male | female | other | unknown Details Administrative Gender. 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.
birthDate		date	The date on which the person was born Details The birth date for the person. At least an estimated year should be provided as a guess if the real DOB is unknown.
address		Address[]	One or more addresses for the person Details One or more addresses for the person. Person may have multiple addresses with different uses or applicable periods.
photo		Attachment	Image of the person Details An image that can be displayed as a thumbnail of the person to enhance the identification of the individual.
managingOrganization		Reference<Organization>	The organization that is the custodian of the person record Details The organization that is the custodian of the person record.
active		boolean	This person's record is in active use Details Whether this person's record is in active use.
link		PersonLink[]	Link to a resource that concerns the same actual person Details Link to a resource that concerns the same actual person.
id		string	Unique id for inter-element referencing Details Unique id for the element within a resource (for internal references). This may be any string value that does not contain spaces.
extension		Extension[]	Additional content defined by implementations Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the element. 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 can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. 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.
modifierExtension		Extension[]	Extensions that cannot be ignored even if unrecognized Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the element and that modifies the understanding of the element in which it is contained 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 can 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). 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.
target	✓	Reference< Patient | Practitioner | RelatedPerson | Person >	The resource to which this actual person is associated Details The resource to which this actual person is associated.
assurance		code	level1 | level2 | level3 | level4 Details Level of assurance that this link is associated with the target resource.

Search Parameters

Name	Type	Description	Expression
address	string	A server defined search that may match any of the string fields in the Address, including line, city, district, state, country, postalCode, and/or text	Person.address
address-city	string	A city specified in an address	Person.address.city
address-country	string	A country specified in an address	Person.address.country
address-postalcode	string	A postal code specified in an address	Person.address.postalCode
address-state	string	A state specified in an address	Person.address.state
address-use	token	A use code specified in an address	Person.address.use
birthdate	date	The person's date of birth	Person.birthDate
email	token	A value in an email contact	Person.telecom.where(system = 'email')
gender	token	The gender of the person	Person.gender
phone	token	A value in a phone contact	Person.telecom.where(system = 'phone')
phonetic	string	A portion of name using some kind of phonetic matching algorithm	Person.name
telecom	token	The value in any kind of contact	Person.telecom
identifier	token	A person Identifier	Person.identifier
link	reference	Any link has this Patient, Person, RelatedPerson or Practitioner reference	Person.link.target
name	string	A server defined search that may match any of the string fields in the HumanName, including family, give, prefix, suffix, suffix, and/or text	Person.name
organization	reference	The organization at which this person record is being managed	Person.managingOrganization
patient	reference	The Person links to this Patient	Person.link.target.where(resolve() is Patient)
practitioner	reference	The Person links to this Practitioner	Person.link.target.where(resolve() is Practitioner)
relatedperson	reference	The Person links to this RelatedPerson	Person.link.target.where(resolve() is RelatedPerson)

Inherited Elements

Name	Required	Type	Description
id		string	Logical id of this artifact Details The logical id of the resource, as used in the URL for the resource. Once assigned, this value never changes. The only time that a resource does not have an id is when it is being submitted to the server using a create operation.
meta		Meta	Metadata about the resource Details The metadata about the resource. This is content that is maintained by the infrastructure. Changes to the content might not always be associated with version changes to the resource.
implicitRules		uri	A set of rules under which this content was created Details 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.
language		code	Language of the resource content Details The base language in which the resource is written. Language is provided to support indexing and accessibility (typically, services such as text to speech use the language tag). The html language tag in the narrative applies to the narrative. The language tag on the resource may be used to specify the language of other presentations generated from the data in the resource. Not all the content has to be in the base language. The Resource.language should not be assumed to apply to the narrative automatically. If a language is specified, it should it also be specified on the div element in the html (see rules in HTML5 for information about the relationship between xml:lang and the html lang attribute).
text		Narrative	Text summary of the resource, for human interpretation Details 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.
contained		Resource[]	Contained, inline Resources Details These resources do not have an independent existence apart from the resource that contains them - they cannot be identified independently, and nor can they have their own independent transaction scope. This should never be done when the content can be identified properly, as once identification is lost, it is extremely difficult (and context dependent) to restore it again. Contained resources may have profiles and tags In their meta elements, but SHALL NOT have security labels.
extension		Extension[]	Additional content defined by implementations Details May be used to represent additional information that is not part of the basic definition of the resource. 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 can define an extension, there is a set of requirements that SHALL be met as part of the definition of the extension. 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.
modifierExtension		Extension[]	Extensions that cannot be ignored Details 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). 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.

Usage

The Person resource serves as a linkage resource that may provide a reference set of common demographics for an individual (human or animal) across multiple roles.
This linkage can be direct to role-specific FHIR resources (Patient, Practitioner and RelatedPerson) residing on the same or possibly distinct FHIR systems/applications, or indirectly through the use of business identifiers.

The Person resource may be used in many situations/contexts, including:

• A set of demographics that can be used to co-ordinate the maintenance of this de-normalized information across practitioners, patients and/or related persons
  e.g. link known resources of the different types together within a system
• A state/network based Master Person Index
  e.g. A National Identifier Index or a Network membership/subscriber list
• A central register that links patient resources from multiple servers, indicating they all correspond to the same individual
  e.g. Within a large organization with many systems to be able to link the various records, without having to modify the source information with external links
• A support for access monitoring software that is able to assert what practitioner, patient and related person records correspond to the same human being to assist in detecting improper querying.
  e.g. asserting that a Patient A is the same individual as a RelatedPerson B who is related to Patient C, who is also Practitioner D. As such, monitoring for Practitioner D’s accesses to Patient A’s records should be carefully scrutinized.
• Local record(s) on a mobile device listing links to remote server patient resources
  e.g. A mobile phone application storing references to the hospitals they have access to

Note: The Person resource is an advanced feature. Many systems don’t have a way to relate information across resource types, or systems, especially from Patient to Practitioner, and therefore might not implement this functionality. Some do have ways of relating the Patient and RelatedPerson resource types. FHIR is also able to do this without the Person resource, utilizing the Patient.link property (as shown in the Mother and newborn relationship example)

Relationships

Person resources may have references to Patient, RelatedPerson and/or Practitioner resources. These linkages assert that all the records relate to the same individual.

Person instances are never directly referenced as actors (authors, subjects, performers, etc.) Individual actors are always identified as either Patient, Practitioner or RelatedPerson, depending on the role of the individual when undertaking the action. Therefore this resource SHALL NOT be referenced by any other clinical or administrative resources. E.g. it can be the focus of an operation or message or included in a Bundle, but cannot be a member of a List or Group, the subject of an Observation, or other similar non-infrastructural usage.

In some use cases the linkages will be indirect, and through business Identifiers, such as in the case of the various types of Master Person Indexes, where the records are not there for the purpose of healthcare, but simply describing a population of people, and has other purposes and not just to represent a population patients.