Standardized Medication Profile (SMP) FHIR IG
1.0.0 - STU 1

Standardized Medication Profile (SMP) FHIR IG, published by HL7 International / Pharmacy. This guide is not an authorized publication; it is the continuous build for version 1.0.0 built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) CI Build. This version is based on the current content of https://github.com/HL7/smp-ig/ and changes regularly. See the Directory of published versions

## Domains

Page standards status: Informative

This implementation guide provides a set of resource profiles to define how information should be packaged and retrieved in the exchange of medication data. This guide outlines the technical specification but requires the understanding of non-technical participants in implementation.

### Use

Implementers of this IG SHALL support the main profiles support the Medication list exchanges, SMPMedicationList and SMPMedicationStatement conformant to this guide. Additionally, the profiles supporting the exchange of medication list information with the Bundle resource SHOULD be implemented at implementer discretion.

### Motivation and Approach

Standards designers and implementers face many challenges when attempting to enable scalable and meaningful interoperability between health IT systems. Two specific ones that this IG engages with are:

- Low Friction Communication: How to generate agreement and consensus about the structure of and terminology used to communicate data so that implementers can adopt the IG consistently enough to support exchange with minimal partner-specific handling and thus realize a reduction in the administrative overhead associated with communication of this information.
- Understanding and Use: How to support the effective use of the data by clinicians and other users so the system can realize the intended benefits of the sharing of this data, namely improved care and reduced costs.

Categorization of observations into health domains based on International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (commonly known as ICF) categories provides opportunities to address these challenges.

#### Low Friction Communication

Categorization of functioning and engagement observations into health domains reduce the set of conformant data by allowing categories to be tied to specific value sets that limit the set of valid observation codes. This mechanism supports the development of consistent implementation of the standards, which in turn enables interoperability, by:

- clearly defining a subset of codes that must be understood and accepted by the system that is much smaller than typical general requirements (e.g., all of LOINC)
- supporting validation of inbound data and rejection of messages that do not conform

#### Understanding and Use

The collection of a person's functioning and engagement varies between care settings. Comprehension and use of information communicated from one setting to another should not require a detailed understanding of the collection mechanisms. By categorizing observations into health domains, health IT systems can organize received data in a clinically relevant way.