FHIR R4 ObservationDefinition API

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 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

Note that this content is preliminary has not undergone proper review by the appropriate Workgroups.

An instance of ObservationDefinition represents the definitional aspects of a kind of observation. This resource is used in a catalog of products or services for healthcare. It provides the definition of observations, which are used as input or produced as outcome of these products and services. The focus of the definitional aspects of ObservationDefinition is not on the action of performing observations of that kind. Rather, it is on the outcome of the observations. An instance of ObservationDefinition represents a set of constraints applicable to the value produced by observations of this kind. This set of constraints may have two utilities:

1. It guides the entry of the result of an observation of the kind defined.
2. It helps the consumer of the results of observations of that kind, to interpret properly these results.

For instance, in a catalog of laboratory in vitro diagnostic services, the ObservationDefinition resources describe the observations that should be provided by the orderer alongside with an ordered service (questions asked at order entry or at specimen collection, prior results) as well as the observations that will be reported once the service has been performed.

In a catalog of medications, ObservationDefinition resources can be used to describe observations the result thereof need to be checked against the prescription of a particular medicinal product (therapeutic range, units ...)

In the catalog of tests of an in vitro diagnostic device, ObservationDefinition resources can be used to characterize (absolute range, unit, decimal precision, critical values ...) the observations that will be produced by the IVD tests performed by the device.

ObservationDefinition may be used to characterize observations from any discipline.

This API uses FHIR R4 ObservationDefinition Library.

More information about FHIR R4 ObservationDefinition specification can be found here.