FHIR Condition
The HL7 FHIR resource for a clinical condition, problem, or diagnosis.1 In OIDM it appears in one place: the documented FHIR mapping of an Imaging Problem List, which is “a Report containing a list of Condition objects (labeled with the finding identifier), where each Condition object also contains a list of Observation objects which document which exams (DiagnosticReports) the finding type has been documented on, including the exam date and exam type.”2
One Condition therefore stands for one finding type in one patient, and the observations under it are the evidence trail across exams.
Synonyms and near-synonyms
- Problem is the clinical word for what a Condition represents.
- FHIR DiagnosticReport is the exam-level counterpart in the same mapping.
- IPL finding entry is the OIDM object a Condition would encode.
- Diagnosis as a FindingClass entity type is a vocabulary concept, not this resource.
Identifier form
A FHIR resource identifier. The mapping labels each Condition with the finding identifier it stands for.
Where it is used
FHIR mapping, Imaging Problem List, and IHE IDR alignment.
Conflicts
Three points are unsettled. The mapping is documented and implemented nowhere; no Condition resource is produced by any OIDM code. Its container is called a “Report,” which is not a FHIR resource name. And IHE IDR takes a different position on when Condition is appropriate, routing positive clinical findings to Condition and negative ones to Observation, against an OIDM working default that “every assertion in a radiology report, diagnoses included, is encoded as an Observation,” partly because “‘consistent with pneumonia’ is a radiologist’s assertion, not an established clinical condition.”3 If that default holds, Condition.evidence as the finding-to-diagnosis link has nowhere to attach and an Observation-to-Observation equivalent is needed.