HL7 NK1 → FHIR RelatedPerson
The NK1 (next of kin / associated parties) segment becomes a FHIR R4 RelatedPerson linked to the patient. Only patient is required, so a relationship-only NK1 still produces a valid resource.
An HL7 NK1 segment maps to a FHIR RelatedPerson: NK1-2→name, NK1-3→relationship, NK1-4→address, NK1-5→telecom, all referencing the patient.
Field-by-field
| HL7 field | FHIR path | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| NK1-2 | RelatedPerson.name | XPN name → family / given / suffix. |
| NK1-3 | RelatedPerson.relationship | Relationship to patient (e.g. SPO → Spouse). |
| NK1-4 | RelatedPerson.address | XAD address → line / city / state / postalCode. |
| NK1-5 | RelatedPerson.telecom | Phone number(s) → telecom[system=phone]. |
| (patient) | RelatedPerson.patient | Reference to the PID patient. Required 1..1. |
| NK1-7, 13, 16, 33 | — surfaced | Contact role, organization name, date of birth, identifiers are surfaced for review (not yet mapped). |
Live example
This is produced by the actual converter — paste your own message and it runs the same way, entirely in your browser.
MSH|^~\&|ADT|HOSP|ZK|MERIDIAN|20240101103000||ADT^A01|MSG1|P|2.5.1 PID|1||MRN123^^^HOSP^MR||DOE^JANE||19850312|F NK1|1|DOE^JOHN^Q|SPO^Spouse^HL70063|456 OAK ST^^BOSTON^MA^02101|(617)555-9999||EC^Emergency Contact^HL70131
{
"resourceType": "RelatedPerson",
"id": "relatedperson-1",
"patient": {
"reference": "urn:uuid:00000000-0000-4000-8000-000000000001"
},
"relationship": [
{
"text": "Spouse"
}
],
"name": [
{
"family": "Doe",
"given": [
"John",
"Q"
],
"text": "John Q Doe"
}
],
"telecom": [
{
"system": "phone",
"value": "(617)555-9999"
}
],
"address": [
{
"line": [
"456 OAK ST"
],
"city": "BOSTON",
"state": "MA",
"postalCode": "02101",
"text": "456 OAK ST, BOSTON, MA 02101"
}
]
}What didn’t map (surfaced, never dropped)
The engine flags every field it can’t place in FHIR so a human can decide — nothing is silently lost.
- NK1-7 (Contact role) present but not yet mapped to FHIR; value preserved for review: EC^Emergency Contact^HL70131
Related mappings
Zkeleton builds conversion and data infrastructure for healthcare. This converter is free, runs entirely in your browser, and never sends a message anywhere — we keep it open because clean data plumbing should be a commodity, not a toll.