HL7 PID segment

Question

I have some misunderstanding issues with HL7 specially in PID segment. if we have a patient has two different names, how can we build the PID-5 using the two names? Example the previous name Han John Burke the current name Han Robert Mat Any idea guys

Answer 1

PID-5 is a repeating field:

|name-1^components~name-2^components|

if a system doesn't support repeating components, it doesn't support multiple names

Answer 2

You may use the repeating character to separate the two names within PID.5, but ultimately it depends on what the system you're integrating with accepts. I found a standard HL7 spec from one EMR vendor that states if the HL7 version is greater than 2.2, PID.5.7 will populate with L, and if there are multiple other names PID.5.7 will populate with an M. The M may be a required flag to show that there is an additional name. For HL7 versions less than 2.2 PID.5.7 may not be used. You may need to have additional carats put in place until the 7th sub-component for it to work as well.

I tested this in our test system and the result is below. You can see the M was used multiple times because there were multiple other versions of this person's name. Hope this helps! Thanks!

|TEST^FAITH^^^^^M~test^hello^^^^^M~maiden^faith^^^^^M|