Medical Devices and FHIR

[Eric Schaal]

Hi,

We are building medical devices capable of continuous muscular pressure monitoring. These devices communicate with a (standalone) mobile app via bluetooth and data is stored "in the cloud". We are interested to integrate the application into Cerner in order to help with Surgeon Workflow.

Our goal is to retrieve the list of our devices currently in use/prescribed by the practitioner that logs in (via Open ID connect). We have a few questions concerning which FHIR resource to use.

According to our understanding, when a new (reusable) medical device is shipped its barcode is scanned on arrival. The unique identified contained in the barcode is stored in the system. Is there a way to retrieve the list of devices registered at a specific institution using the FHIR API?

When a practitioner prescribes the use of a device on a patient, what kind of FHIR resource is created? How can we retrieve the UID of the device being installed on the patient?

Best,

Eric

[Jenni Syed (Cerner)]

Hi Eric,

First, the Cerner answer: We currently limit our Device resource to exposing implanted devices. You can read more here: https://fhir.cerner.com/millennium/dstu2/devices/device/#overview

The more broad answer for FHIR is that this likely would be through the Device resource (to find registered devices). The FHIR resource also references prescribing scenarios: http://hl7.org/fhir/dstu2/device.html#bnr

To get more information on the broader way the standard deals with devices, I would reach out to the FHIR group with questions (they're on zulip on chat.fhir.org). 

Regards,

Jenni