German Practice Management FHIR Profiles (R4)
Version 0.99.1 - release

Confirmed Patient Presence

Confirmed Patient Presence

This page defines the source-neutral FHIR contract for recording that a patient was physically present for an ambulatory practice encounter. The contract is the EncounterPraxisPresenceConfirmed profile in this package.

The profile identifies a deliberately narrow subset of EncounterPraxis so a consumer does not mistake every ordinary clinical Encounter with a period for confirmed-presence evidence. It introduces no extension and does not identify the technology that supplied the evidence.

FHIR Contract

Element Requirement Meaning
meta.profile includes encounter-praxis-presence-confirmed Machine-selectable assertion that the producer has confirmed presence under this contract
subject required Patient Patient whose presence was confirmed
serviceProvider required Organization Practice organization responsible for the encounter
period.start required Start of the Encounter associated with confirmed presence
statusHistory.status = arrived exactly one required presenceArrival slice The standard FHIR arrival stage that established the presence assertion
statusHistory.period.start required on the arrival slice Time at which confirmed presence began
location.location and location.period optional Real resolved place and the interval during which the patient was there
appointment optional Appointment associated with the Encounter, when one exists

The KBV parent binds the current Encounter.status to the German Encounter status ValueSet. That ValueSet does not include the FHIR R4 arrived code, although Encounter.statusHistory.status retains the FHIR Core binding and can record arrived. Producers therefore use in-progress for an active contact or finished for a completed contact and put the arrival stage in statusHistory. A consumer checks the profile canonical, the arrival slice, freshness, and an acceptable current status; it must not select on Encounter.period alone and must reject entered-in-error resources.

Location Is Evidence, Not a Default

When the source resolves a real FHIR Location, Encounter.location.location may reference it and Encounter.location.period records the interval during which the patient was physically present there. When the source supplies only a Patient, Organization, and timestamp, the producer must not create a synthetic Location such as a guessed reception desk. Omitting location is conformant and preferable to a false location assertion.

When an actual reception area is represented as a resolved Location, its Location.type may continue to use PraxisWorkplaceFunctionCS#reception-check-in. The active code describes the physical place; it is not generic check-in metadata on the Encounter.

A remote identity or token flow does not by itself establish physical presence at a named practice Location. A producer may declare this profile only when its own authoritative process has established the presence assertion represented by the Encounter. The profile is not a cryptographic-proof profile.

Evidence Source and Provenance

The Encounter records the interoperable outcome, while the evidence source remains separate. Use base FHIR R4 Provenance when interoperable lineage is required. Provenance does not replace the profile assertion and must not copy raw token material, cryptographic validation results, or protocol exchanges into the Encounter.

PoPP and VSDM 2 Boundary

Gematik defines the PoPP token and its verification at the TI service and API boundary, not as an Encounter profile. VSDM 2 uses its published protocol and FHIR exchange for insurance master data; those Patient, Coverage, and payer data are not a substitute for the presence Encounter. Conversely, this profile does not represent a PoPP token, a VSDM 2 response, or proof that either protocol was executed.

Authoritative upstream references: