HL7 RAS_O17 (Pharmacy/Treatment Administration) | Integration Soup HL7 Reference Guide

HL7 RAS_O17 Pharmacy/Treatment Administration

The patient actually received, refused, missed, or otherwise had an administration event recorded.

HL7 message structure RAS_O17 groups and segments from HL7 v2.5.1 Hide structure

These are the generated groups and segments for the version selected at the top of the page. The article explains the workflow, and this panel follows the chosen HL7 version.

Message Structure

Segment	Name	Required	Repeatable
MSH	Message Header	Yes	No
SFT	Software Segment	No	Yes
NTE	Notes and Comments	No	Yes
RAS_O17.PATIENT	Patient group	No	No
PID	Patient Identification	Yes	No
PD1	Patient Additional Demographic	No	No
NTE	Notes and Comments	No	Yes
AL1	Patient Allergy Information	No	Yes
RAS_O17.PATIENT_VISIT	Patient Visit group	No	No
PV1	Patient Visit	Yes	No
PV2	Patient Visit - Additional Information	No	No
RAS_O17.ORDER	Order group	Yes	Yes
ORC	Common Order	Yes	No
RAS_O17.TIMING	Timing group	No	Yes
TQ1	Timing/Quantity	Yes	No
TQ2	Timing/Quantity Relationship	No	Yes
RAS_O17.ORDER_DETAIL	Order Detail group	No	No
RXO	Pharmacy/Treatment Order	Yes	No
RAS_O17.ORDER_DETAIL_SUPPLEMENT	Order Detail Supplement group	No	No
NTE	Notes and Comments	Yes	Yes
RXR	Pharmacy/Treatment Route	Yes	Yes
RAS_O17.COMPONENTS	Components group	No	Yes
RXC	Pharmacy/Treatment Component Order	Yes	No
NTE	Notes and Comments	No	Yes
RAS_O17.ENCODING	Encoding group	No	No
RXE	Pharmacy/Treatment Encoded Order	Yes	No
RAS_O17.TIMING_ENCODED	Timing Encoded group	Yes	Yes
TQ1	Timing/Quantity	Yes	No
TQ2	Timing/Quantity Relationship	No	Yes
RXR	Pharmacy/Treatment Route	Yes	Yes
RXC	Pharmacy/Treatment Component Order	No	Yes
RAS_O17.ADMINISTRATION	Administration group	Yes	Yes
RXA	Pharmacy/Treatment Administration	Yes	Yes
RXR	Pharmacy/Treatment Route	Yes	No
RAS_O17.OBSERVATION	Observation group	No	Yes
OBX	Observation/Result	Yes	No
NTE	Notes and Comments	No	Yes
CTI	Clinical Trial Identification	No	Yes

RAS_O17 is the pharmacy/treatment administration message. It is normally created by the administering application, such as an eMAR or nursing system, for each administration event tied to an existing order. It is the message you look for when the question is "what happened at the bedside?"

RAS is close to VXU in shape because both use RXA, but the workflows are different. VXU reports immunization records, usually to a registry. RAS reports medication or treatment administrations within clinical operations.

A small RAS example

MSH|^~\&|MAR|CITYHOSP|PHARM|CITYHOSP|20260715141000||RAS^O17^RAS_O17|RAS00001|P|2.5.1 PID|1||123456^^^CITYHOSP^MR||Smith^Jane^Anne^^Ms^^L||19800314|F PV1|1|I|WARD2^205^1^CITYHOSP ORC|RE|MED448811^EHR|RX998877^PHARM RXA|0|1|20260715140000|20260715140200|AMOX500^Amoxicillin 500 mg capsule^L|1|CAP^capsule^UCUM||00^Administered^HL70167|12345^Nurse^Nora RXR|PO^Oral^HL70162 OBX|1|ST|ADMINNOTE^Administration note^L||Taken with water||||||F

What systems do with it

The sender is usually the administration system. The receiver may be pharmacy, the EHR, a clinical repository, billing, analytics, or an integration engine. Receivers use the message to update MAR history, medication reconciliation, dose tracking, inventory, clinical documentation, and sometimes charging.

RXA carries the administration event. RXR carries route and site. ORC ties the administration back to the medication order. Optional OBX segments can carry administration-related observations such as vitals, reactions, comments, or local compliance details.

How to read the structure

The patient group includes PID, optional visit, allergy, and notes. The required order group starts with ORC, may include original or encoded order detail, then requires one or more administration groups. Each administration group has RXA, a required RXR, and optional observations.

Multiple RXA segments can represent multiple administrations. Do not collapse them into a single medication line if the receiver needs dose-by-dose history.

Implementation traps

Administration status is not always simple. Given, refused, held, wasted, partial dose, patient unavailable, and not administered may be represented differently by local profiles. The receiver needs to understand the exact RXA and OBX conventions before using the event for clinical decisions or billing.

Also keep administration time separate from message time. MSH-7 tells you when the message was created; RXA tells you when the administration event happened.

Reference notes

Caristix describes RAS_O17 as a message created by the administering application for each administration instance. Implementation specs for administered medications commonly use RAS^O17^RAS_O17 with PID, visit, ORC, RXA, and RXR as the practical backbone.