Describes the intended objective(s) for a patient, group group, or organization care, for example, organizational care. Examples include a patient's weight loss, restoring restoration of an activity of daily living, living for a patient, obtaining herd immunity via immunization, immunization for a group, meeting a process improvement objective, objective for an organization, etc.

Goal can be achieving a particular change or merely maintaining a current state or even slowing a decline.

Business identifiers assigned to this goal by the performer or other systems which remain constant as the resource is updated and propagates from server to server.

Allows identification of the goal as it is known by various participating systems and in a way that remains consistent across servers.

This is a business identifier, not a resource identifier (see discussion ). It is best practice for the identifier to only appear on a single resource instance, however business practices may occasionally dictate that multiple resource instances with the same identifier can exist - possibly even with different resource types. For example, multiple Patient and a Person resource instance might share the same social insurance number.

The state of the goal throughout its lifecycle.

Allows knowing whether goal needs to be further tracked.

This element is labeled as a modifier because the lifecycleStatus contains codes that mark the resource as not currently valid.

Describes the progression, or lack thereof, towards the goal against the target.

Indicates a category the goal falls within.

Allows goals to be filtered and sorted.

After meeting the goal, ongoing activity is needed to sustain the goal objective.

Allows for a system to programmatically update achievementStatus upon finding evidence the goal has been met.

For example, getting a yellow fever vaccination for a planned trip is a goal that is designed to be completed (continuous = false). A goal to sustain HbA1c levels would not be a one-time goal (continuous = true).

Identifies the mutually agreed level of importance associated with reaching/sustaining the goal.

Used for sorting and presenting goals.

Extensions are available to track priorities as established by each participant (i.e. Priority from the patient's perspective, different practitioners' perspectives, family member's perspectives)

The ordinal extension on Coding can be used to convey a numerically comparable ranking to priority. (Keep in mind that different coding systems may use a "low value=important".

Human-readable and/or coded description of a specific desired objective of care, such as "control blood pressure" or "negotiate an obstacle course" or "dance with child at wedding".

Without a description of what's trying to be achieved, element has no purpose.

If no code is available, use CodeableConcept.text.

Identifies the patient, group or organization for whom the goal is being established.

Subject is optional to support annonymized reporting.

The date or event after which the goal should begin being pursued.

Goals can be established prior to there being an intention to start pursuing them; e.g. Goals for post-surgical recovery established prior to surgery.

Information about the acceptance and relative priority assigned to the goal by the patient, practitioners and other stakeholders.

The person ororganization whose acceptance/priority is being reflected.

Using Group is only allowed when the group represents a family or a household and should not represent groups of Practitioners.

Indicates whether the specified individual has accepted the goal or not.

Indicates the relative priority assigned to the goal by the stakeholder.

Indicates what should be done by when.

Allows the progress of the goal to be monitored against an observation or due date. Target is 0..* to support Observations with multiple components, such as blood pressure goals with both a systolic and diastolic target.

When multiple targets are present for a single goal instance, all targets must be met for the overall goal to be met.

The parameter whose value is being tracked, e.g. body weight, blood pressure, or hemoglobin A1c level.

The target value of the focus to be achieved to signify the fulfillment of the goal, e.g. 150 pounds, 7.0%. Either the high or low or both values of the range can be specified. When a low value is missing, it indicates that the goal is achieved at any focus value at or below the high value. Similarly, if the high value is missing, it indicates that the goal is achieved at any focus value at or above the low value. A CodeableConcept target value could be Positive, Negative, Abnormal, Normal, Present, Absent, Yes, No.

A CodeableConcept with just a text would be used instead of a string if the field was usually coded, or if the type associated with the Goal.target.measure defines a coded value.

Indicates either the date or the duration after start by which the goal should be met.

Identifies when the goal should be evaluated.

Identifies when the current status. achievement status took effect. I.e. When initially created, when achieved, when cancelled, improving, etc.

To see the date for past statuses, query history.

Captures the reason for the current lifecycle status.

This will typically be captured for statuses such as rejected, on-hold or cancelled, but could be present for others.

Indicates whose goal this is - patient goal, practitioner goal, etc. Individual who recorded the record and takes responsibility for its content.

This is Because the individual responsible recorder takes responsibility for establishing accurately recording information in the goal, record, the recorder is the most recent author. The recorder might or might not necessarily be the source who recorded it. (For that, use established the Provenance resource.). goal. Using Group is only allowed when the group represents a family or a household and should not represent groups of Practitioners.

The identified conditions and other health record elements that are intended to be addressed by the goal. Indicates whose goal this is - patient goal, practitioner goal, etc.

Any comments related to This is the goal. individual or team responsible for establishing the goal, not necessarily who recorded it. Using Group is only allowed when the group represents a family or a household and should not represent groups of Practitioners.

May be used for progress notes, concerns or The identified conditions and other related information resources that doesn't actually describe provide the context for why the goal itself. exists.

Outcome tracking is a key aspect of care planning. Allows specific goals to explicitly linked to the concerns they're dealing with - makes the goal more understandable.

Details of what's changed (or not changed). Any comments related to the goal.

Outcome tracking is There's a key aspect of care planning. need to capture information about the goal that doesn't actually describe the goal.

The goal outcome is independent of the outcome of the related activities. For example, if the Goal is to achieve a target body weight of 150 lb and a care plan activity is defined to diet, then the care plan’s activity outcome could May be calories consumed whereas goal outcome is an observation used for progress notes, concerns or other related information that doesn't actually describe the actual body weight measured. goal itself.