This page is part of the Clinical Order Workflows (v1.0.0-ballot: STU 1 Ballot 1) based on FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) R4. No current official version has been published yet. For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions

Using Task

The Task resource is a FHIR resource dedicated to the management of workflows; Except in very simple workflows, it is expectable that the Task resource will be used in most data exchanges when there are workflow needs. Designers and implementers of systems implementing workflows using FHIR resources are highly recommended to review the Task resource pages.

This ImplementationGuide introduces two specific types of Task that are important for the execution of workflows:

• Coordination Task - the preferred way to keep track of statuses, and requested and performed activities (see profile).
• Cancellation Request Task - the preferred way to request cancellation of a Request, or of another Task.

Some of the elements that support the key purposes of the Task resource:

Task creation and execution: Task.status

The Task status represents the status of the activity that is being performed. To support system interoperability, the status is limited to a set of values.

Tracking workflow status: Task.businessStatus

One of the core aspects in FHIR workflow is that FHIR distinguishes status of authorization and status of execution. While it is common to consider concepts like "status of the order", in FHIR the status of the order is simply whether an authorization is draft, active, not active, and completed. The Task resource and specifically Task.businessStatus is used to track the actual execution, assigning a code for the status.

Focal resource: Task.focus

Tasks can be used for tracking and coordinating the execution of requests. Task.focus indicates which request is being acted upon by the Task and its derivatives, inputs and outputs.

Task.input

Task.input is used to get the relevant Data for the performer to execute the Request. Examples:

• Specimen Resource
• QuestionnaireResponse Resource (for example ask at Order Entry Questions)
• etc.

Task.output

Task.output is used to get - if and when available - the output of the Request from the Filler to the Placer. Examples of resources that are typical outputs are:

• DiagnosticReport
• Questionaires
• ImageStudy
• etc.

Coordinating several requests

The Task resource can be used to coordinate several requests, when they are grouped but not orchestrated (i.e. they are part of the same group, but are not interdependent).

In future releases of FHIR, Task.focus is planned to expand to 0..* in support of the cases where there is a need to coordinate several requests. For supporting this in R4 and R5, implementers can use a built-in extension mechanism that "imports" an element as an extension. In this case, the task.focus element is imported as an additional extension on Task, thus allowing task.focus to effectively point to several requests.

Profile: GroupCoordinationTask
Parent: Task
* extension contains http://hl7.org/fhir/4.0/StructureDefinition/extension-Task.focus named focus 0..* MS

See the example of grouped dispense.