Necessity of provide more than one BodyStructure for Specimen.collection

[vayvy]

From a medical perspective there is a necessity of being able to provide more than one BodyStructure. This is, for example, relevant for COVID testing where the specimen is often collected with a nasopharyngeal swab or in general microbiology studies. In the current implementation, this is not possible.

Possible approaches could be:

• Changing the cardinality for the extension BodyStructureReference to 0..*: https://jira.hl7.org/browse/FHIR-51564
• Instead of just backporting BodyStrcuture.includedStructures.laterality from R5, backporting the whole structure BodyStrcuture.includedStructures

There are probably other approaches and ideas that need to be discussed as well. This issue needs to be tackled and a common agreement must be found!

[joofio]

Hi, can you help me understand the examples a little bit better?

[vayvy]

Do you mean the examples why this is needed or the possible approaches to solve this issue?

[joofio]

Why it's needed, so we can choose the proper way to solve it! Thanks! Victoria Ayvasky ***@***.***> escreveu em qui., 24/07/2025 às 15:39 :

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[LOeppert42]

Using the example of the COVID testing:

In a COVID testing the specimen is often taken with one swab from more than one bodysites, e.g. pharynx first and with the same swab also right and left nostril.
In this case, it is necessary to be able to provide more than one BodyStructures.