List — detail: curated lists and IPS

Editorial container for lists: problem list, allergy list, medication list, current care list, provider list. Core of the IPS (International Patient Summary) model.

Role of curated lists

A List is a view composed and maintained manually over a set of resources. Where a FHIR search returns everything that matches, a List reflects a clinical decision about what is relevant. The clinician chooses what to include/exclude: not all diagnoses are active problems.

mode: working, snapshot, changes

Key fields

• status — current | retired | entered-in-error.
• title — human-displayed title.
• code — LOINC code (e.g. 11450-4 problem list, 48765-2 allergy list).
• orderedBy — ordering criterion (user, system, event-date, priority).
• entry — a list item. Backbone with item (Reference), deleted (in changes mode), flag, date.
• emptyReason — if the list is intentionally empty (nullFlavor).

Example: IPS Problem List

{
  "resourceType": "List",
  "id": "problem-list-marie-dupont",
  "status": "current",
  "mode": "working",
  "title": "Active problem list",
  "code": {
    "coding": [{
      "system": "http://loinc.org",
      "code": "11450-4",
      "display": "Problem list - Reported"
    }]
  },
  "subject": { "reference": "Patient/marie-dupont" },
  "date": "2026-05-18T09:00:00+02:00",
  "source": { "reference": "Practitioner/dr-leclerc" },
  "orderedBy": {
    "coding": [{
      "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/list-order",
      "code": "priority"
    }]
  },
  "entry": [{
    "item": { "reference": "Condition/diabetes-type-2" }
  }, {
    "item": { "reference": "Condition/hypertension" }
  }, {
    "flag": {
      "coding": [{
        "system": "http://terminology.hl7.org/CodeSystem/list-item-flag",
        "code": "01"
      }]
    },
    "deleted": false,
    "date": "2026-05-18T09:00:00+02:00",
    "item": { "reference": "Condition/migraine-occasional" }
  }]
}

Common pitfalls

• Inconsistent mode — a mode=snapshot with entry.deleted is invalid; deleted only makes sense in changes.
• Missing orderedBy — the order in entry[] may then be silently reorganised by clients.
• List used in place of a search — if the list is derivable from a FHIR search, prefer the search.
• Empty list with no emptyReason — an empty entry[] without emptyReason is ambiguous (forgotten vs intentional).

Related resources

• List — overview
• Composition
• Group
• Bundle