FHIR R4 AdverseEvent Library

Overview

This asset is a component of MuleSoft Accelerator for Healthcare.

MuleSoft Accelerator for Healthcare enables healthcare providers to unlock critical patient data to build a patient 360 within Salesforce Health Cloud, faster and easier than ever before. The solution includes pre-built APIs, connectors, integration templates, and a prescriptive end-to-end reference architecture to bring patient demographics information and COVID-19 test results from any EHR into Health Cloud using HL7 V2 or FHIR standards.

The solution also provides a library of United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) and FHIR R4 resources to help healthcare developers adhere to interoperability needs and jumpstart the development of healthcare digital transformation initiatives.

Use case covered

AdverseEvent is an event resource from a FHIR workflow perspective - see Workflow Event

This resource applies to events that occur during the course of medical care or medical research which may impact an individual as the recipient of care or the participant in a research study. There are also events that occur within a care setting that might or might not impact an individual but had the potential to cause an adverse event. Health care organizations monitor and report both adverse events as well as events that had the potential to cause patient harm. Data are often aggregated for reporting purposes.

An adverse event is the result of an intervention that caused unintentional harm to a specific subject or group of subjects. Examples of adverse events include the administration of an incorrect drug or an incorrect dose of a drug causing an adverse reaction, the use of an implanted device that causes an infection, or a biologic used during a research study that causes unanticipated renal failure. These events are characterized by the need to capture cause and effect (although they might not be known at the time of the event), severity, and outcome.

The context of an adverse event is also important. A subject may have condition(s) or current treatments (medications, diet, devices) that impact their response to a newly introduced medication, device or procedure. Knowledge of these variables is essential in establishing a cause and effect relationship for an adverse event.

A potential adverse event may also be called a near miss or an error. These are also events but because they were detected did not cause harm to a subject. Examples of potential adverse events include a product problem such as a faulty pacemaker that is detected prior implantation, a doctor working simultaneously on two electronic health records realizing the order for a drug was entered on the incorrect patient and then canceling the order, or a patient with a peanut allergy notices that his hospital dinner tray includes peanuts, and he does not eat the peanuts.

This library is used in FHIR R4 AdverseEvent API.

More information about the FHIR R4 AdverseEvent specification can be found here.