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  1. FHIR Specification Feedback
  2. FHIR-35090

Remove guidance from Patient.birthDate to "guess" the DOB.

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    • Icon: Change Request Change Request
    • Resolution: Persuasive
    • Icon: Medium Medium
    • FHIR Core (FHIR)
    • R5
    • Patient Administration
    • Patient
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      The comment for Patient.birthDate will be updated to:

       

      Partial dates are allowed if the specific date of birth is unknown.  There is a standard extension "patient-birthTime" available that should be used where Time is required (such as in maternity/infant care systems).

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      The comment for Patient.birthDate will be updated to:   Partial dates are allowed if the specific date of birth is unknown.  There is a standard extension "patient-birthTime" available that should be used where Time is required (such as in maternity/infant care systems).
    • Brian Postlethwaite / Reinhard Egelkraut : 5-0-0
    • Clarification
    • Non-substantive
    • R5

    Description

      There is currently this comment in Patient.birthDate:

      Comments At least an estimated year should be provided as a guess if the real DOB is unknown There is a standard extension "patient-birthTime" available that should be used where Time is required (such as in maternity/infant care systems).

       

      This comment I think implies that the system behind the FHIR resource should somehow require and end user to guess.  The alternative is that the spec is implying that a FHIR server should somehow guess a DOB based on.. what?  How can a FHIR server guess a birth date for a patient?  Try to query national registries?  Try to search google or Facebook?  Do facial recognition on a photo and try to guess the age?  Do statistical analysis on popular names for a given year?

       

      The FHIR spec cannot reasonable impose a requirement on systems to have end users "guess" a DOB.  If a system has received the patient info via an HL7v2 interface, an e-mail, or a scanned referral, there many not be any end user that can guess.  

       

      Anyway, this comment should be updated to remove the guidance on guessing, since that is impractical in often inappropriate:

      There is a standard extension "patient-birthTime" available that should be used where Time is required (such as in maternity/infant care systems).

       

       

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            Egelkraut Reinhard Egelkraut
            cooper.thompson Cooper Thompson
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              Updated:
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