Athena Core Implementation Guide
5.4.0 - release

Athena Core Implementation Guide - Local Development build (v5.4.0) built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) Build Tools. See the Directory of published versions

Extension: athenahealth Department

Official URL: https://fhir.athena.io/StructureDefinition/ah-department Version: 5.4.0
Active as of 2025-10-16 Computable Name: AthenaDepartment

An Extension used to reference a specific athenahealth department Organization.

athenahealth provides a multi-tenant SaaS platform on which our customers provide healthcare services to their patients. Tenants are defined as practices within athenahealth. In general, a practice can be a hospital, medical center, clinic, or any other healthcare-related entity. Typically, a practice represents the business entity that provides healthcare services and can be in a single location or spread across multiple locations.

A provider group is an organizational entity representing a set of providers within a practice.

A chart sharing group is an organizational entity used to share clinical charts across provider groups.

A department is a location or an organizational entity representing any place of service where a provider in a practice sees patients. A department can be a site of registration such as a medical office or a site where services are rendered such as the emergency room. A department can be used to associate provider groups and/or chart sharing groups in a practice to simplify its grouping of providers and their access to patient clinical data.

Every department is identified by a single numeric Department ID and is associated to a specific practice in athenahealth. It is represented as a FHIR Organization having an Organization.id defined by a-{PID}.Department-{ID} where {PID} is the Practice ID and {ID} is the Department ID. This resource-level extension is used to specify the appropriate department for appropriate athenahealth FHIR resources as a literal reference to a FHIR Organization.

Context of Use

This extension may be used on the following element(s):

  • Element ID Resource

Background

athenahealth provides a multi-tenant SaaS platform on which our customers provide healthcare services to their patients. Tenants are defined as practices within athenahealth. In general, a practice can be a hospital, medical center, clinic, or any other healthcare-related entity. Typically, a practice represents the business entity that provides healthcare services and can be in a single location or spread across multiple locations.

A department is a location or an organizational entity representing any place of service where a provider in a practice sees patients. A department can be a site of registration such as a medical office or a site where services are rendered such as the emergency room. A department can be used to associate provider groups and/or chart sharing groups in a practice to simplify its grouping of providers and their access to patient clinical data.

Department Identity

Every department is identified by a single numeric Department ID and is associated to a specific practice in athenahealth. It is represented as a FHIR® Organization having an Organization.id defined by a-{PID}.Department-{ID} where {PID} is the Practice ID and {ID} is the Department ID.

This resource-level extension is used to specify the appropriate department for appropriate athenahealth FHIR resources as a literal reference to an Organization. For example:

{
  "id": "...",
  "extension": [
    {
      "url": "https://fhir.athena.io/StructureDefinition/ah-department",
      "valueReference": {
        "reference": "Organization/a-432.Department-3456"
      }
    }
  ],
}

Usage info

Usage:

Formal Views of Extension Content

Description of Profiles, Differentials, Snapshots, and how the XML and JSON presentations work.

This structure is derived from Extension

Summary

Simple Extension of type Reference: An Extension used to reference a specific <b>athenahealth</b> <i>department</i> Organization.

This structure is derived from Extension

NameFlagsCard.TypeDescription & Constraintsdoco
.. Extension 0..* Extension athenahealth Department
... extension 0..0
... url 1..1 uri "https://fhir.athena.io/StructureDefinition/ah-department"
... value[x] 1..1 Reference(Organization | Location) Reference to athenahealth Organization for 'department'

doco Documentation for this format
NameFlagsCard.TypeDescription & Constraintsdoco
.. Extension 0..* Extension athenahealth Department
... id 0..1 string Unique id for inter-element referencing
... extension 0..0
... url 1..1 uri "https://fhir.athena.io/StructureDefinition/ah-department"

doco Documentation for this format

This structure is derived from Extension

Summary

Simple Extension of type Reference: An Extension used to reference a specific <b>athenahealth</b> <i>department</i> Organization.

Differential View

This structure is derived from Extension

NameFlagsCard.TypeDescription & Constraintsdoco
.. Extension 0..* Extension athenahealth Department
... extension 0..0
... url 1..1 uri "https://fhir.athena.io/StructureDefinition/ah-department"
... value[x] 1..1 Reference(Organization | Location) Reference to athenahealth Organization for 'department'

doco Documentation for this format

Snapshot View

NameFlagsCard.TypeDescription & Constraintsdoco
.. Extension 0..* Extension athenahealth Department
... id 0..1 string Unique id for inter-element referencing
... extension 0..0
... url 1..1 uri "https://fhir.athena.io/StructureDefinition/ah-department"

doco Documentation for this format

 

​Other representations of profile: CSV, Excel, Schematron