CS2

Determining the Status of Clinical Statement

Note: Most of the description provided in this section is copied from the § 3.3 Determining the Status of Clinical Statement of the C-CDA DSTU R2.1 Implementation Guide Volume 1 [HL7 C-CDA Implementation Guide DSTU R2.1 http://www.hl7.org/implement/standards/product_brief.cfm?product_id=379].

A recipient must be able to determine whether the status of an entry — which can include a problem, a medication administration, etc. — is active, completed, or in some other state. Determination of the exact status is dependent on the interplay between an act’s various components (such as statusCode and effectiveTime). The following principles apply when representing or interpreting the status of a clinical statement.

• The Act.statusCode of the clinical statement specifies the state of the entry: Per the RIM, the statusCode “reflects the state of the activity. In the case of an Observation, this is the status of the activity of observing, not the status of what is being observed.”
• Act.statusCode and Act.moodCode are inter-related: Generally, an act in EVN (event) mood is a discrete event (a user looks, listens, measures, and records what was done or observed), so generally an act in EVN mood will have a statusCode of “completed.” A prolonged period of observation is an exception, in which a user would potentially have an observation in EVN mood that is “active.” For an Observation in RQO (request) mood, the statusCode generally remains “active” until the request is complete, at which time the statusCode changes to “completed.” For an Observation in GOL (goal) mood, the statusCode generally remains “active” as long as the observation in question is still an active goal for the patient.
• Act.statusCode and Act.effectiveTime are interrelated: Per the RIM, the effectiveTime, also referred to as the “biologically relevant time,” is the time at which the act holds for the patient. So, whereas the effectiveTime is the biologically relevant time, the statusCode is the state of the activity. For a provider seeing a patient in a clinic and observing a history of heart attack that occurred 5 years ago, the status of the observation is completed, and the effectiveTime is five years ago.

The IPS Problem Concern Entry and the IPS Allergy and Intolerance Concern templates reflect an ongoing concern on behalf of the provider that placed the concern (e.g. a disease, an allergy, or other conditions) on a patient’s problem or allergy list. The purpose of the concern act is that of supporting the tracking of a problem or a condition (e.g. an allergy). A concern act can contain one or more discrete observations related to this concern. Each of them reflects the change in the clinical understanding of a condition over time. For instance, a Concern may initially contain a symptom of “chest pain”, later identified as consequence of a gastroesophageal reflux. The later problem observation will have a more recent author time stamp.

There are different kinds of status that could be of clinical interest for a condition:

• The status of the concern (active, inactive,..)
• The status of the condition (e.g. active, inactive, resolved,..)
• The confirmation status [verification status, certainty] (e.g. confirmed, provisional, refuted,…)

Not all of them can be represented in a CDA using the statusCode elements of the concern (ACT) and observation (condition).

Status of the concern and related times

The statusCode of the Problem Concern Act is the definitive indication of the status of the concern. So long as the provider has an ongoing concern — meaning that the provider is monitoring the condition, whether it includes problems that have been resolved or not — the statusCode of the Concern Act is “active.” When the underlying conditions are no longer an active concern, the statusCode of the Problem Concern Act is set to “completed.”

The Concern Act effectiveTime reflects the time that the underlying condition was considered a concern. It may or may not correspond to the effectiveTime of the condition (e.g., even five years later, the clinician may remain concerned about a prior heart attack). The effectiveTime/low of the Concern Act asserts when the concern became active. This equates to the time the concern was authored in the patient's chart. (i.e. it should be equal to the earliest author time stamp) The effectiveTime/high asserts when the concern became inactive, and it is present if the statusCode of the concern act is "completed". If this date is not known, then effectiveTime/high will be present with a nullFlavor of "UNK".

Status of the condition and related times

Each Observation contained by a Concern Act is a discrete observation of a condition. Its statusCode is always “completed” since it is the “status of the activity of observing, not the status of what is being observed”. The clinical status of a condition (e.g. a disease, an allergy,..) is instead recorded by specialized subordinated observations (IPS Allergy Status Observation; IPS Problem Status Observation), documenting whether it is active, in remission, resolved, et cetera. The effectiveTime, also referred to as the "biologically relevant time", is the time at which the observation holds for the patient. For a provider seeing a patient in the clinic today, observing a history of penicillin allergy that developed six months ago, the effectiveTime is six months ago. The effectiveTime of the Observation gives an indication of whether or not the underlying condition is resolved, but the current status is documented by a subordinated observation. The effectiveTime/low (a.k.a. "onset date") asserts when the allergy/intolerance became biologically active. The effectiveTime/high (a.k.a. "resolution date") asserts when the allergy/intolerance was biologically resolved. If the date of resolution is not known, then effectiveTime/high will be present with a nullFlavor of "UNK".

Figure: Problem Concern Act (from C-CDA IG DTSU R2.1 HL7 C-CDA Implementation Guide DSTU R2.1 http://www.hl7.org/implement/standards/product_brief.cfm?product_id=379)

Confirmation status

The confirmation status, also noted as verification status or certainty, indicates the certainty associated with a condition (e.g. confirmed, provisional, refuted,…) providing information about the potential risk, for example, of a reaction to the identified substance. The confirmation status of a condition (e.g. a disease, an allergy,..) is recorded by a specialized subordinated observation (IPS certainty Observation), documenting whether the condition is confirmed, unconfirmed, provisional, refuted, et cetera.ge