Extract data from physician orders

A physician order is the instruction that sets clinical work in motion, and it covers far more than a prescription. Where a prescription order tells a pharmacy what to dispense, a physician order can direct a medication, a lab test, an imaging study, or a procedure, and it carries the urgency that decides how fast each happens. In a US hospital, an order-entry clerk, a pharmacist, and an ancillary-services team in radiology or the lab all read the same instruction: who ordered it, with what license, for which patient and encounter, at what priority, and for what clinical reason. Modeled in HL7 FHIR as a service request, a physician order names the ordering physician with a license number and an NPI, the order priority of STAT, ASAP, or routine, the clinical indication, and the specific orders, each medication with its dose and dispense request, each lab test with its specimen and LOINC code, each imaging study with its modality and body site. One order sheet can mix several order types, and the priority governs the whole workflow. A single sheet can carry a STAT antiemetic medication, a STAT metabolic panel (LOINC 24323-8), and a routine chest radiograph (CPT 71046) scheduled for a specific date and time, and each line carries its own priority so each has to route to a different fulfilling service with that priority intact, because a STAT order and a routine order enter different queues. License number and NPI tie the order to an authorized prescriber, the clinical indication justifies it, and the scheduled date and time fixes when it should be performed. Verbal and handwritten orders still have to be transcribed into the same structured fields before any service acts on them. Talonic reads the physician order and returns the ordering physician and license, the patient and encounter, the priority and clinical indication, and the medication, lab, imaging, and procedure orders as structured rows, with each order keyed to the service that fulfills it. An order written 2026-05-30 by Dr. Alan Reyes (NPI 1093847562) at Riverside Regional Hospital under encounter ENC-2026-4471, marking a STAT metabolic panel and a routine chest radiograph scheduled for 2026-05-31, loads into an order-entry system with each line priority and its specimen fields intact instead of transcribed by hand. Clinical appropriateness is not assessed; the order is structured as stated.

What gets extracted from physician orders

How extraction works for physician orders

Physician orders reach an order-entry system as CPOE printouts from EHR systems such as Epic Systems and Oracle Health, scanned order sheets, and faxed or transcribed verbal orders, so a single order can arrive structured or handwritten. Talonic classifies the order and maps it to the clinical-order schema in the Field Registry, which separates the ordering physician and the patient encounter from the repeating medication, lab, imaging, procedure, and approval tables. Ordering physician name, license number, and specialty are captured, each line's priority is read as STAT, ASAP, or routine, and the clinical indication is kept as the justification. Medication orders return with dose, frequency, quantity, and refills, lab tests with a LOINC code and a specimen type, and imaging orders with a modality and body site, each keyed to the service that fulfills it. Scheduled dates and times are parsed so each order routes to the right queue. Per-cell confidence and pixel-region provenance under DIN SPEC 91491 let a pharmacist or an ancillary-services team verify a dose or a specimen type against the source order before acting on it. Verifying clinical appropriateness stays with the ordering physician and the fulfilling service.

Sample extraction

A physician order sheet mixing a STAT lab and a routine imaging order

{
  "document_number": "PHO-2026-4471",
  "document_date": "2026-05-30",
  "ordering_physician_name": "Dr. Alan Reyes",
  "ordering_physician_license_number": "MD-TX-114879",
  "ordering_physician_specialty": "Internal Medicine",
  "patient_identifier": "4471982",
  "patient_name": "Helen Park",
  "encounter_number": "ENC-2026-4471",
  "encounter_facility_name": "Riverside Regional Hospital",
  "status": "in_progress",
  "clinical_indication": "Rule out metabolic disturbance",
  "order_lab_tests": [
    {
      "test_id": "1",
      "test_name": "Comprehensive metabolic panel",
      "test_code": "24323-8",
      "specimen_type": "serum",
      "priority": "STAT",
      "collection_date": "2026-05-30",
      "result_status": "pending"
    }
  ],
  "order_imaging": [
    {
      "imaging_id": "1",
      "imaging_type": "Chest radiograph",
      "body_site": "chest",
      "priority": "routine",
      "cpt_code": "71046",
      "imaging_date": "2026-05-31",
      "modality": "XR"
    }
  ],
  "order_medications": [
    {
      "medication_id": "1",
      "medication_name": "Ondansetron",
      "dose": "4 mg",
      "frequency": "every 8 hours PRN",
      "priority": "STAT",
      "duration": "48 hours",
      "quantity": 6,
      "refills": 0
    }
  ]
}

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