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Please note: This guidance has been superseded by the Implementation guide for digitial medicines, which contains up-to-date information.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: status

Important: This is the next most important element of a MedicationStatement after the Medication.

It provides the consumer with information to determine if the medication is relevant for their use case.

For example: whether the medication deemed 'current' (or active).

Status FHIR Definition Recommendation
active The medication is still being taken. It is believed the medication is active in the patients system.
completed The medication is no longer being taken. A course of medication has been completed and the medication is not active in the patients system.
entered-in-error The statement was recorded incorrectly. Indicates the MedicationStatement is INVALID. It is not expected that a MedicationStatement with this status to be included in exchanges.
intended The medication may be taken at some time in the future. It is intended that the medication will be given to the patient. When this is used effective[x] MUST indicate when it is intended that the medication to be taken.
stopped Actions implied by the statement have been permanently halted, before all of them occurred. Medication has been stopped before the completion of the prescribed course and there is no plan to restart it. When used the reason MUST be indicated in statusReason.
on-hold Actions implied by the statement have been temporarily halted, but are expected to continue later. May also be called "suspended". Medication has been temporarily stopped.
When used the reason MUST be indicated in statusReason.
Where it is known when it is indented to restart it this may be indicated in statusReason.
unknown Not implemented within STU3 The patient may have had some encounter with this medication, but the current status is unknown. It is not expected that this status be avoided.
not-taken Not implemented within STU3 The patient has not taken the medication as prescribed.

Statuses expanded

Important: Determining the value of this element when constructing the resource.

The status will need to be calculated if the basedOn or partOf elements within the profile are defined.

A MedicationStatement represents a snapshot in time of a patient medication - and if the status has not been provided, then the following business rule may apply to compute the state.

Status How it can be determined
active
  • A completed MedicationRequest (if known) where the current date is between the dispenseRequest.validityPeriod element. The MedicationStatement.effectivePeriod element should reflect this information.
  • Where the current date is between the MedicationStatement.effectivePeriod
completed
  • Where the current date is after the MedicationStatement.effectivePeriod
  • A completed MedicationRequest (if known) where the dispenseRequest element is either not defined, or the current date is greater than the dispenseRequest.validityPeriod.
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