How to store default telecom (phone and email) for a Patient

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1

Hello,

I want to specify a Patient.telecom (phone number and/or email) as the patient’s “default” telecom. What’s the best way to do that? Should I just specify the telecom rank = 1 to identify it as a default, e.g. telecome.system=“phone”, use=“home”, rank=1? How have others done it? Is it better to create an extension, or store as an identifier?

Thanks.

2

It sort of depends on what is meant by ‘default’ - default for what purpose? rank allows conveying ‘preference’ amongst alternatives. If your business rules say that “most preferred” is the default, you can use rank (though it’s allowed for multiple contact types to have a ‘rank’ of 1). If you need something super-precise, an extension is probably your best bet.