This page is part of the AU Core (v1.0.0-preview: QA Preview) based on FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) R4. . For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions

Medicine Information

The FHIR standard defines the following resources for exchanging medicine information:

• Medication
• MedicationAdministration
• MedicationDispense
• MedicationRequest
• MedicationStatement

AU Core defines the following profiles:

• AU Core Medication: to support medicinal product identification in an Australian healthcare context.
• AU Core MedicationRequest (with AU Core Medication): to support prescription, ordering, and ePrescribing use cases.

It is anticipated that future releases of AU Core will define profiles of:

• MedicationAdministration (with AU Core Medication) to support medication chart and other administration use cases.
• MedicationDispense (with AU Core Medication) to support dispense records and medication management use cases.
• MedicationStatement (with AU Core Medication) to support summary statements of medicine use.

The guidance below addresses how medicinal product identification can be structured in FHIR conformant to AU Core.

Medicinal Product Identification

For extemporaneous medications, the medication code element is the primary mechanism to identify a medicine. In this case, a list of ingredients including strength and form is recommended to be provided as text in the medication code element e.g. Medication.code.text or MedicationRequest.medicationCodeableConcept.text.

For non-extemporaneous medications, the medication code element is the primary mechanism to identify a medicine. In this case, information identifying the medicinal product including strength and form is recommended to be provided as a code from a terminology in the medication code element, e.g. Medication.code.coding or MedicationRequest.medicationCodeableConcept.coding, and the description of the medicinal product as presented to the user is provided in the text e.g. Medication.code.text or MedicationRequest.medicationCodeableConcept.text.

Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT) is the national terminology for identification and naming of medicines in clinical systems for Australia. The AMT is published monthly to include new items on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods from the TGA, as well as items listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The AMT is published as part of SNOMED CT-AU (Australian edition of SNOMED CT) and can be downloaded in a variety of formats from the National Clinical Terminology Service (NCTS).

In addition to the medication code, the majority of use cases support exchange of structured medicine information as separate data elements covering brand name, generic name, item form and strength, and manufacturer. These data elements may be supported as coded, or text, and systems are likely to use a combination of coded and text elements when constructing a Medication resource.

The guidance for how to support coded or text identification of medicinal products is summarised below:

1. For coded support of a medication, the preferred method is to use a single medication code that captures all information required for identification of the medication in code.coding.
   • AMT contains both generic or branded medication concepts. Depending on the concept level selected, an AMT concept can convey the following detail: brand name, generic (ingredient) name, item form, strength, pack size, container type.
   • AMT concepts are defined by relationships which detail the properties or components that identify a medication. Detailed information about the medication such as the brand name, generic (ingredient) name, form and strength can be retrieved via terminology lookup operation.
   • When there is a requirement to explicitly state the the type of medicinal coding (e.g. branded product with strength or form), Medication Type extension can optionally be used in the resource (i.e. MedicationAdministration, MedicationStatement, MedicationDispense, MedicationRequest, Medication):
     • generic item form and strength = code.coding with Medication Type extension using UPDSF from the Medication Type code system
     • branded item form and strength = code.coding with Medication Type extension using BPDSF from the Medication Type code system

   Example: Medication with single code identifying brand name, item form and strength.

    {
      "resourceType": "Medication",
       ...
      "code": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "system": "http://snomed.info/sct",
              "code": "32328011000036106",
              "display": "Benpen 3 g powder for injection, 1 vial"
            },
          ]
        }
    }
   

   Example: Medication with single code identifying generic name, item form and strength, with identification of product type.

    {
      "resourceType": "Medication",
       ...
      "code": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "extension": [
                {
                  "url": "http://hl7.org.au/fhir/StructureDefinition/medication-type",
                  "valueCoding": {
                    "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org.au/CodeSystem/medication-type",
                    "code": "UPDSF",
                    "display": "Unbranded product with strengths and form"
                  }
                }
              ],
              "system": "http://snomed.info/sct", 
              "code": "32686011000036108",
              "display": "benzylpenicillin 3 g injection, vial"
            },
          ]
        }
    }
   

2. For coded support of brand name, generic name, manufacturer, item form and strength, where the individual components required for medication identification are separately coded:
   • Coded support for the following can be provided using code.coding with an optional Medication Type extension to explicitly declare the type of product identification in the resource (i.e. MedicationAdministration, MedicationStatement, MedicationDispense, MedicationRequest, Medication), for example:
     • brand name = code.coding with Medication Type extension using BPD from the Medication Type code system
     • generic name = code.coding with Medication Type extension using UPD from the Medication Type code system
   • If the resource is a Medication resource:
     • form and strength may be separately provided in Medication.form, Medication.ingredient.itemCodeableConcept and Medication.ingredient.strength when they are not implicit in Medication.code

   Example: Medication with coded brand name, generic name, item form and strength.

    {
      "resourceType": "Medication",
        ...
        "code": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "extension": [
                {
                  "url": "http://hl7.org.au/fhir/StructureDefinition/medication-type",
                  "valueCoding": {
                    "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org.au/CodeSystem/medication-type",
                    "code": "UPD",
                    "display": "Unbranded product with no strengths or form"
                  }
                }
              ],
              "system": "http://pbs.gov.au/code/item",
              "code": "02647H",
              "display": "BENZYLPENICILLIN"
            },
            {
              "extension": [
                {
                  "url": "http://hl7.org.au/fhir/StructureDefinition/medication-type",
                  "valueCoding": {
                    "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org.au/CodeSystem/medication-type",
                    "code": "BPD",
                    "display": "Branded product with no strengths or form"
                  }
                }
              ],
              "system": "http://snomed.info/sct",
              "code": "3539011000036105",
              "display": "Benpen"
            }, 
          ]
        },
        "manufacturer": {
          "identifier": {
            "system": "http://pbs.gov.au/code/manufacturer",
            "value": "CS"
          }
        },
        "form": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "system": "http://snomed.info/sct",
              "code": "129011000036109",
              "display": "Injection"
            }
          ],
          "text": "Injection"
        },
        "ingredient": [
          {
            "itemCodeableConcept": {
              "coding": [
                {
                  "system": "http://snomed.info/sct",
                  "code": "323389000",
                  "display": "Benzylpenicillin"
                }
              ]
            },
            "strength": {
              "numerator": {
                "value": 3,
                "unit": "g"
              },
              "denominator": {
                "value": 1,
                "unit": "unit"
              }
            }
          }
        ]
    }
   

3. For non-coded support for brand name, generic name, manufacturer, item form and strength:
   • Non-coded support is provided using the Medication resource
     • brand name = Medication.extension Medication Brand Name extension
     • generic name = Medication.extension Medication Generic Name extension
     • item form and strength = Medication.code.text

   Example: Medication with text only brand name, generic name, item form and strength.

   {
     "resourceType": "Medication",
      ...
      "extension": [
        {
          "url": "http://hl7.org.au/fhir/StructureDefinition/medication-generic-name",
          "valueString": "Benzylpenicillin"
        },
        {
          "url": "http://hl7.org.au/fhir/StructureDefinition/medication-brand-name",
          "valueString": "Benpen"
        }
      ],
      "code": {
        "text": "Benpen 3 g powder for injection, 1 vial"
      }
   }
   

4. Manufacturer information is not typically included in a medication code. Support for manufacturer information is provided using a Medication resource:
   • coded support: manufacturer = Medication.manufacturer.identifier
   • non-coded support: manufacturer = Medication.manufacturer.display

   Example: Medication with coded manufacturer.

    {
      "resourceType": "Medication",
        ...
        "code": {
          "coding": [
            {
              "system": "http://snomed.info/sct",
              "code": "32328011000036106",
              "display": "Benpen 3 g powder for injection, 1 vial"
            }
          ]
        },
        "manufacturer": {
          "identifier": {
            "system": "http://pbs.gov.au/code/manufacturer",
            "value": "CS"
          }
        }
    }
   

   Example: Medication with non-coded manufacturer.

    {
      "resourceType": "Medication",
       ...
       "code": {
         "text": "Benpen 3 g powder for injection, 1 vial"
       },
       "manufacturer": {
         "display": "Seqirus"
       }
    }