FHIR Version 4 location search - near parameter

[liamwilson-kainos]

Good Morning,

In the FHIR version 4 HL7 documentation I have come across the "near" parameter which lets you search for location near given latitude and longitude coordinates - https://hl7.org/fhir/r4/location.html#positional

This parameter is marked as being of type "special" - https://hl7.org/fhir/r4/search.html#special

I can see from the Azure FHIR server documentation that this not supported.

Are there any existing plans on the roadmap for this to be supported and if so would it ever be likely to add this to version 4 of the specification?

Thanks

[EXPEkesheth]

Thanks for sharing the need for near search parameter support. Can you please share your use case on the same?

[liamwilson-kainos]

hi @EXPEkesheth! My use case is that we have native Android and iOS applications which provide information on health care services and locations within the area which the app is responsible for. We are looking at introducing functionality whereby using a latitude and longitude from a native map we can locate locations that are nearby.