HL7 ODS (Dietary Orders, Supplements, and Preferences) | Integration Soup HL7 Reference Guide

HL7 ODS Dietary Orders, Supplements, and Preferences

Pharmacy and treatment fields from experience.

HL7 field reference ODS fields from HL7 v2.5.1 Show fields

These are the generated fields for the version selected at the top of the page. The document stays the same, but the reference panel follows that version.

Fields

Field	Name	Required	Repeatable	Type	Table
ODS.1	Type	Yes	No	ID	0159
ODS.2	Service Period	No	Yes	CE
ODS.3	Diet, Supplement, or Preference Code	Yes	Yes	CE
ODS.4	Text Instruction	No	Yes	ST

ODS carries dietary orders, supplements, and preferences.

The standard describes ODS this way: The ORC sequence items of interest to ODS are ORC-1-order control, ORC-2-placer order number, ORC-3-filler order number, ORC-7-quantity/timing, ORC-9-date/time of transaction, ORC-10-entered by, and ORC-11-verified by. For ORC-1-order control, the values may be New (NW), Cancel (CA), Discontinue Order Request (DC), Change (XO), Hold Order Request (HD), and Release Previous Hold (RL). The HD and RL codes could stop service for a specified length of time. ORC-7-quantity/timing should be used to specify whether an order is continuous or for one service period only. It is also useful for supplements which are part of a diet but only delivered, say, every day at night.

Pharmacy/treatment segments split a medication workflow into ordered, encoded, dispensed, administered, component, route, timing, and instruction details.

Be very clear about whether a field describes what was ordered, what the pharmacy dispensed, what was scheduled to be given, or what was actually administered. Those are related, but they are not the same event.

The v2.5.1 structures show ODS in OMD_O03 - OMD - Diet order and ORD_O04 - ORD - Diet order acknowledgment. That tells you where it can appear, but the implementation guide still decides which optional fields are meaningful.

For practical interface work, read the generated field panel for datatype, required, repeatable, and table details, then use the notes below to decide what the field should mean in the receiving workflow.

ODS-1 Type RequiredR SingleS TypeID Table0159

ODS-1 qualifies the pharmacy workflow rather than identifying it. This is the sort of field receivers often use for branching, filtering, or display grouping.

Use the agreed value set, starting from HL7 table 0159. A local code without an agreed coding system is a small ambiguity that becomes a mapping problem later.

ODS-2 Service Period OptionalO RepeatableR TypeCE

ODS-2 carries Service Period for this pharmacy workflow. Populate it only when the receiver has a clear use for it, and keep the value in the datatype shape shown in the generated field panel.

This field can repeat. Use repetitions for separate real-world values, not as a workaround for putting several unrelated ideas in one field.

ODS-3 Diet, Supplement, or Preference Code RequiredR RepeatableR TypeCE

ODS-3 identifies the Diet, Supplement, or Preference Code for this pharmacy workflow. Send the identifier that the receiving system actually keys on, and keep the assigning authority or coding system visible when the datatype supports it.

If there are several identifiers, use repetitions deliberately and make each repeat self-explanatory rather than relying on position alone.

ODS-4 Text Instruction OptionalO RepeatableR TypeST

ODS-4 is human-readable context. Keep it useful for display and troubleshooting, but do not hide required workflow logic here unless the implementation guide explicitly says the receiver parses it.

Because the field can repeat, separate distinct statements into separate repetitions instead of creating one long hard-to-parse block.

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