Transport — Patient or specimen transport
New R5 resource. Models effective transport: ambulance, inter-service porter, biological-specimen transfer.
Purpose
Transport is introduced in R5 to fill a gap: patient/specimen transport had no native resource (people improvised with Task). Covers the full cycle: request (intent=order), execution (status=in-progress), arrival (status=completed).
Typical cases: hospital porter, 911 ambulance, airport-hospital shuttle, organ transport for transplant, lab specimen between facilities.
Key fields
| Field | Type | Cardinality | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
status | code | 1..1 | in-progress, completed, abandoned, cancelled, planned, entered-in-error. |
intent | code | 1..1 | unknown, proposal, plan, order, original-order… |
priority | code | 0..1 | routine, urgent, asap, stat. |
code | CodeableConcept | 0..1 | Transport type. |
for | Reference(Any) | 0..1 | Transported subject. |
encounter | Reference(Encounter) | 0..1 | Associated stay. |
completionTime | dateTime | 0..1 | Actual arrival time. |
requestedLocation | Reference(Location) | 0..1 | Requested destination. |
currentLocation | Reference(Location) | 1..1 | Current location. |
reason | CodeableReference | 0..1 | Transport reason. |
JSON example
Porter to MRI room:
{
"resourceType": "Transport",
"id": "example",
"status": "completed",
"intent": "order",
"priority": "urgent",
"code": {
"coding": [{ "system": "http://snomed.info/sct", "code": "433144002", "display": "Transport of patient" }]
},
"for": { "reference": "Patient/example" },
"encounter": { "reference": "Encounter/stay-12345" },
"completionTime": "2026-05-16T15:45:00Z",
"requestedLocation": { "reference": "Location/imaging-room-3" },
"currentLocation": { "reference": "Location/imaging-room-3" },
"reason": { "concept": { "text": "MRI appointment" } }
}Common pitfalls
- currentLocation not updated: the resource must follow the move (may need repeated PUTs).
- completionTime without status=completed: inconsistent.
- Confusion with Task: Task is generic, Transport is specific to physical movement.
Related resources
- Task — Generic operational workflow.
- Location — Origin / destination.
- ServiceRequest — Enclosing service request.
- Encounter — Associated stay.