DeviceAssociation
The association of a medical device with a patient, bed, vehicle or another device. The pivot for remote monitoring and medical IoT.
Purpose
DeviceAssociation captures a temporal link between a device and a subject: insulin pump worn by patient X since 15 May, cardiac monitor attached to bed ICU-101, medical drone carrying an AED on mission. The resource encodes when the association starts and ends, the role played, the reason.
Key elements
| Field | Type | Cardinality | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
identifier | Identifier[] | 0..* | Association identifiers. |
device | Reference(Device) | 1..1 | Associated device. |
category | CodeableConcept[] | 0..* | Association category. |
status | CodeableConcept | 1..1 | `implanted`, `explanted`, `entered-in-error`, `unknown`. |
statusReason | CodeableConcept[] | 0..* | Status reason. |
subject | Reference(Patient | Group | Practitioner | RelatedPerson | Device | Procedure | Location) | 0..1 | Associated subject. |
bodyStructure | Reference(BodyStructure) | 0..1 | Involved anatomical structure. |
period | Period | 0..1 | Association period. |
operation | BackboneElement[] | 0..* | Operating mode, operator. |
JSON example
{
"resourceType": "DeviceAssociation",
"id": "example-pump-association",
"identifier": [{
"system": "https://hospital.example.org/device-link",
"value": "ASSOC-2026-04501"
}],
"device": {
"reference": "Device/insulin-pump-001"
},
"status": {
"coding": [{
"system": "http://hl7.org/fhir/deviceassociation-status",
"code": "implanted"
}]
},
"subject": {
"reference": "Patient/diabetic-12345"
},
"bodyStructure": {
"reference": "BodyStructure/abdomen-right"
},
"period": {
"start": "2026-05-15"
}
}Common pitfalls
- Status='implanted' used for an external wearable — conflates implantation and wear.
- Missing period.end when the device is explanted: history left inaccurate.
- No subject: orphan association, no clinical value.
Related resources
- device — the device itself.
- deviceusage — patient-stated usage.
- devicedispense — initial dispense.
- patient — wearer.