Alternative names

[jtara]

I have started to use the directory in a project, and I found the names for Issuers wanting, so I added my own long name and short name in my own table.

This sounded reasonable, so long as there were only 3 Issuers in the directory.

Boom! the directory exploded over night. (Yay!)

It seems now some Issuers have a different idea than perhaps was anticipated? The Cerner additions are fine-grain in some cases down to the individual practice.

It seems to me there are going to be a lot of names that can be confused for each other, and maybe even literally identical, even though they have the same NAME they are not the same THING. (Shades of Through the Looking Glass!)

In any case, it is quite common when listing entities of some sort of another, to have perhaps a long name, short name, maybe even medium length name. Depending on layout and available space, one or the other might be preferable, for example.

Not to mention actual legal name (which would be the case for any registered entity, Corporation or LLC, etc.)

I have naive about medical entities. I have to assume there is are some national/international/regional ID schemes.

I am familiar with secondary and higher education, for example. There are FSC codes, CEEB Codes, Liason Codes, ACT Codes, FAFSA Codes, NCES codes, etc. (Because there can never be enough codes!)

I'll bet medical entities have lots of codes to identify them!

Sorry for the can of worms! ;)

See also #21, which addresses uniqueness of the issuing authorities.

[jordam]

I like the idea of adding a key identifying the practice in a referenceable way.

I wonder if it is necessary at this stage. As a consumer of this information do I need to be able to look up with 100% certainty which provider is which beyond the issuing url?

I just saw the change and I do like the granularity.
I can display this in an autofill list allowing my users to see how widespread this system has become and point them in the right direction to receive a compatible code.