HL7 FHIR DiagnosticOrder code and categories

Question

I am creating a DiagnosticOrder from the HL7 FHIR standard.

I would like to return the type of Order, such as "Full Blood Count" but also the category of this type, for example "Laboratory".

I see that DiagnosticOrder has an item.code property which can be a custom value. I presume this should probably be the Order type.

But how can I represent the category against this Order? Do I need to create an Extension or have I misunderstood the specification?

Answer 1

You're correct - this would be an extension. If you think that there should be a category or identifier or reference for the target of the order - which does kind of sound reasonable, you can propose a change here: http://gforge.hl7.org/gf/account/?action=Login&redirect=%2Fgf%2Fproject%2Ffhir%2Ftracker%2F%3Faction%3DTrackerItemAdd%26tracker_id%3D677

In the meanwhile, yes, it's an extension