Element: text
Free text dosage instructions.
text element to convey a dosage in a human readable format.
In the future, a nationally available Dose to Text Service (similiar to the one in our Demonstrator) will be available, and will be recommended to be used.
In the interim - if the text element is used:
Information to clinicians about administration or preparation of the medication (e.g. “infuse as rapidly as possibly via intraperitoneal port” or “immediately following drug x”) should be populated in dosage.text. It may also be be used (rarely) for cases where the instructions to patient are too complex to code.
The use of the Dosage.text element is discouraged to maximise dosage instructions defined using the coded structures. This position may be subject to change as a result of initial clinical and implementation experience or feedback from the FHIR community.
The Dosage.text element would also be populated in an implementation which does not support the coded structures.
In some cases, where the same instruction is relevant to both a clinician and patient, then the instructions may be repeated using several dosage structures - additionalInstruction or patientInstruction toward patient, text toward the clinician. This will ensure the receiving system makes the information available to the appropriate person.