ePMA Implementation Guidance for FHIR STU3

This guidance is under active development by NHS Digital and content may be added or updated on a regular basis.
Please note: This guidance has been superseded by the Implementation guide for digitial medicines, which contains up-to-date information.

Element: priorPrescription

An optional element for when either the ePMA or pharmacy system would benefit from being able to link re-supply requests with a previous request.

The published FHIR specifications described this element is slightly different ways in different parts of the FHIR specification:

  1. A link to a resource representing an earlier order related order or prescription.
  2. An order or prescription that is being replaced.

The following guidance applies to each use case.

Linking to an earlier request

A medication request that is a re-supply medication request based on a previous request referenced within priorPrescription. This would allow both the ePMA and pharmacy systems to logically link requests and add verification checks to flag any differences to the user.

Linking to an order that is being replaced

The medicationRequest being replaced will be referenced within priorPrescription. It would be expected that the referenced resource would be updated with a status of cancelled, entered-in-error or stopped.

This will allow both the ePMA and pharmacy systems to make it clear to the human user that one medication request replaces another.

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