Athena Core Implementation Guide
5.0.0 - release

Athena Core Implementation Guide - Local Development build (v5.0.0) 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: 5.0.0
Active as of 2025-07-31 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:

  • This Extension is not used by any profiles in this Implementation Guide

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