HL7® FHIR® New Zealand Base Implementation Guide
3.1.0 - Draft

HL7® FHIR® New Zealand Base Implementation Guide, published by HL7 New Zealand. This guide is not an authorized publication; it is the continuous build for version 3.1.0 built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) CI Build. This version is based on the current content of https://github.com/daniel-thomson/nzbase/ and changes regularly. See the Directory of published versions

## Home

Official URL: http://hl7.org.nz/fhir/ImplementationGuide/fhir.org.nz.ig.base.test | Version: 3.1.0
Active as of 2026-03-12 | Computable Name: HL7FHIRNewZealandBaseImplementationGuide

## New Zealand base FHIR Implementation Guide

This is the base Implementation Guide (IG) for New Zealand and contains the common extensions that most NZ FHIR Implementations will need, along with any terminology artifacts referenced by them (ie coded elements).

### Macron support for Te reo Māori

By default, FHIR supports macrons (and all diacritics) as commonly used by Te Reo Māori to indicate long vowels.

Macrons are supported as FHIR uses UTF-8 for all encoding formats (JSON, XML, and RDF), and macrons are explicitly allowed by the relevant FHIR datatypes where macrons could appear.

## Overview of IG Sections

The following tabs are available from the navbar at the top.

### Extensions

This tab lists all the extensions defined in this guide, where an extension is an additional element that can be recorded in a resource. The extension definition describes the purpose of the extension, its name and dataType/s.

Clicking on the link in the 'id' column will display the detail page for that extension. Extensions can have a single value, or can be composed of multiple 'child' elements - an example is the funded programme extension. The snapshot tab in the details page (about halfway down) lists all the parts of the extension - including a link to the ValueSet if the element is coded.

### Terminology

This tab lists the terminology artifacts defined in this guide. There are 2 artifacts that will be found here:

- ValueSets are sets of codes, drawn from one or more code systems, intended for use in coded data elements in Resources, as defined by a particular conformance rule - such as an Extension or Profile. The ValueSets in this Guide are 'recommended' values, but it may be possible for implementers to use additional concepts if the rules defined by a particular Extension or Profile permit this.
- CodeSystem resources are used to declare the existence of and describe a code system, its key properties, and optionally define a part or all of its content. Wherever possible, the use of international terminologies, such as SNOMED CT, is recommended; however, a number of New Zealand-specific code systems are included in this Guide to meet unique, local requirements.

These resources can be used by Terminology Servers (like Terminz or Ontoserver ) to provide terminology operations of use to implementers, such as the ValueSet $expand operation.

There is a lot more detail on terminology in the FHIR specification. The section on Terminology Services is also useful.

### Identifiers

Identifiers are used to unambiguously identify something. Examples in New Zealand are the NHI (National Health Identifier) or HPI (Health Practitioner index). Each type of identifier has a url that uniquely identifies it - for example the value for the NHI is https://standards.digital.health.nz/ns/nhi-id. This url will be present in the 'system' value in a resource instance. Note that the url will not necessarily 'resolve' - entering it into a web browser will not result in anything.

### Artifact Index

This is a tab automatically generated during the build of the Implementation Guide, and lists all the FHIR artifacts defined by the guide with a link to the details.

### Support

Contains links to the main FHIR specification, as well downloads for the full IG or the artifacts defined in the guide (Extension Definitions, ValueSets and CodeSystems.)

If you would like to make any feedback on this Implementation Guide, email admin@hl7.org.nz