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  1. FHIR Specification Feedback
  2. FHIR-15093

Resources should not use the identifier field as the unique id

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    • Icon: Change Request Change Request
    • Resolution: Persuasive
    • Icon: Medium Medium
    • FHIR Core (FHIR)
    • STU3
    • Devices
    • DeviceMetric
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      Revise language to clarify the distinction between unique id and business identifier. Remove "unique" from the beginning of the definition and also at the end - "any" identifier.

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      Revise language to clarify the distinction between unique id and business identifier. Remove "unique" from the beginning of the definition and also at the end - "any" identifier.
    • Elliot Silver / Todd Cooper : 8-0-1
    • Correction
    • Compatible, substantive
    • R5

    Description

      Affected resources: Composition, DetectedIssue, DeviceComponent, DeviceMetric, ImagingManifest, QuestionnaireResponse, SupplyRequest, Datatypes

      These resources appear to use the identifier *element as the unique (i.e. logical) identifier for the resource; this is already represented in the *id field inherited from BaseResource. The identifier element should instead represent the list of (perhaps external) business identifiers by which this resource is also known.

      The descriptions of these fields should be updated and the cardinality changed to '0..*'.

      Compare with Encounter or Organization, as well as many other resources not listed above.

      See also #15028 which documents a similar but distinct problem; in those resources, the description of the identifier element appears to be semantically correct, but the cardinality does not correctly reflect those semantics. The resources specified here not only have incorrect cardinality but also appear to have incorrect descriptions.

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            esilver Elliot Silver
            johnsonwj William Johnson
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            Dates

              Created:
              Updated:
              Resolved: