# Why is location code only a string?

**Category:** [Specifications](https://discourse.openehr.org/c/specifications/6)
**Created:** 2021-04-20 09:25 UTC
**Views:** 550
**Replies:** 1
**URL:** https://discourse.openehr.org/t/why-is-location-code-only-a-string/1481

---

## Post #1 by @johnmeredith

We're working on patterns for making sure our document meta model is mapped to incoming openEHR compositions. One such element concerns `location` code.  An example in structured JSON:

```
"event_context": [
            {
                "start_time": [
                    "2021-04-19T14:36:49.691+01:00"
                ],
                "setting": [
                    {
                        "|code": "232",
                        "|value": "secondary medical care",
                        "|terminology": "openehr"
                    }
                ],
                "_location":[
                        {
                            "|id": "RQFH5",
                            "|id_scheme": "LocationCode",
                            "|id_namespace": "wrds.wales.nhs",
                            "|name": "Velindre Cancer Center"
                        }
                ],
                "_health_care_facility": [
                        {
                            "|id": "RQF",
                            "|id_scheme": " OrganisationCode ",
                            "|id_namespace": "wrds.wales.nhs",
                            "|name": "Velindre NHS Trust"
                        }
                ],
                "_participation": {
                        "|id": "123456F",
                        "|id_scheme": "GMC",
                        "|id_namespace": "uk.org.gmc",
                        "|name": "Dr Jake Jones",
                        "|function": "Attending Clinician" 
                }
            }
]
```
The above element  from `"_location":` gets stripped out and stored as a string. Is there a reason for this? As a workaround we would need to store the above elsewhere but I would like to find out what the preferred pattern should be?

---

## Post #2 by @thomas.beale

That field is a PARTY_IDENTIFIED in EhrScape format, consisting of the `name` field, and then a flattened & modified form of `identifiers` (type `DV_IDENTIFIER`), limited to one instance, i.e. the `id_xxx` parts. We should have that documented in the [Simplified Data Formats](https://specifications.openehr.org/releases/SM/latest/serial_data_formats.html#_openehr_reference_model_data_value_types), but we don't yet.

I think the most obvious suggestion to get this into a single string would be to support a compressed form of PARTY_IDENTIFIED, which includes a compressed form of DV_IDENTIFIER. The latter, using this example could be: `"wrds.wales.nhs::LocationCode::::RQFH5"`. or similar (we need to agree the field order). The general pattern would be something like: `issuer::type::assigner::id`.

This would need to be combined with the remaining `name` field, in this case, `"Velindre Cancer Center"`, maybe something like this: `"Velindre Cancer Center|wrds.wales.nhs::LocationCode::::RQFH5"`.

I'm not 100% sure of the EhrScape field mappings to the openEHR RM types here.

---


**Canonical:** https://discourse.openehr.org/t/why-is-location-code-only-a-string/1481
**Original content:** https://discourse.openehr.org/t/why-is-location-code-only-a-string/1481