National Directory of Healthcare Providers & Services (NDH) Implementation Guide
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National Directory of Healthcare Providers & Services (NDH) Implementation Guide, published by HL7 International / Patient Administration. This guide is not an authorized publication; it is the continuous build for version 2.0.0-current built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) CI Build. This version is based on the current content of https://github.com/HL7/fhir-us-ndh/ and changes regularly. See the Directory of published versions

Resource Relationships

Page standards status: Informative

NDH Resources and Relationships

The NDH IG contains the following resources, which are based on FHIR R4 base 4.0.1 and US Core 6.1.0.

  • Endpoint: The technical details of an endpoint that can be used for electronic services
  • HealthcareService: The details of a healthcare service
  • InsurancePlan: Details of a Health Insurance product/plan provided by an organization
  • Location: Details and position information for a physical place
  • Network (based on Organization): A healthcare provider insurance network
  • Organization: An organization is a formal or informal grouping of people or organizations with a common purpose
  • OrganizationAffiliation: Details of relationships between two or more organizations
  • Practitioner: A practitioner is a person who is directly or indirectly involved in the provisioning of healthcare
  • PractitionerRole: Describes the relationship between a practitioner and an organization. A practitioner provides services to the organization at a location. Practitioners also participate in healthcare provider insurance networks through their role at an organization
  • Verification (based on VerificationResult): Provide information on which verification process was performed, what was verified, when the verification took place, who performed the verification, and how it was verified for a given instance of a resource

Overview of NDH - Resource Relationships

Note: the following diagrams provide a high-level view of the relationships between resources used in this IG. They do not necessarily reflect all of the relationships/references between resources.

All Resource Relationships 1

A high-level view of the relationships between resources. In the NDH resource profiles, there is no inherent relationships. Both Organizations and OrganizationAffiliations can declare a network relationship. Consider a scenario where an OrganizationAffiliation, which is part of a Network, is associated with a PractitionerRole through the Organization. This relationship is not automatically inherited by the PractitionerRole. The PractitionerRole must have its own direct link to the Network. Likewise, any network affiliation declared by a PractitionerRole is not automatically inherited by the organization.

OrganizationAffiliationOrganizationOrganizationOrganizationOrganizationLocationLocationNetworkHealthcareServiceInsurancePlanPractitionerRolePractitionerOrganizationnetwork 0..*organization 0..1healthcareService 0..*providedBy 0..1coverageArea 0..*network 0..*location 0..*network 0..*organization 0..1healthcareService 0..*location 0..*participatingOrganization 0..1network 0..*coverageArea 0..*administratedBy 1..1ownedBy 1..1partOf 0..1practitioner 0..1partOf 0..1partOf 0..1partOf 0..1partOf 0..1partOf 0..1partOf 0..1


All Resource Relationships 2

All resources reference the Endpoint resource.

EndpointHealthcareServiceInsurancePlanLocationNetworkOrganizationOrganizationAffiliationPractitionerPractitionerRoleendpoint 0..*endpoint 0..*endpoint 0..*endpoint 0..*endpoint 0..*endpoint 0..*endpoint 0..*endpoint 0..*


Practitioner Role Relationships

PractitionerRole describes the relationship between a practitioner and an organization. A practitioner provides services to the organization at a location. Practitioners also participate in healthcare provider insurance networks through their role at an organization.

PractitionerRolePractitionerOrganizationLocationNetworkHealthcareServicepractitioner 0..1organization 0..1healthcareservice 0..*network 0..1location 0..*


Organization Affiliation Relationships

Similar to PractitionerRole, OrganizationAffiliation describes relationships between organizations. For example:

  1. The relationship between an organization and an association it is a member of (e.g., hospitals in a hospital association)
  2. An organization that provides services to another organization, such as an organization contracted to provide mental health care for another organization as part of a healthcare provider insurance network
  3. Distinct organizations forming a partnership to provide services (e.g., a cancer center)
OrganizationAffiliationOrganizationOrganizationLocationNetworkHealthcareServicepartcipating organization 0..1organization 0..1healthcare services 0..*networks 0..*locations 0..*


Network / Insurance Plan Relationships

A network is a group of practitioners and organizations that provide healthcare services for individuals enrolled in a health insurance product/plan (typically on behalf of a payer).

OrganizationAffiliationPractitionerRolePractitionerOrganization (payer)Organization (employer)OrganizationNetworkInsurancePlanHealthcareServicenetwork 0..*parterOf 1..1administeredBy 1..1network 0..*practitioner 0..1network 0..*insuranceplan 0..*parterOf 0..1parterOf 0..1organization 0..1network 0..*