Glossary
What is FHIR Provenance?
FHIR Provenance is the resource type that captures the origin and history of other FHIR resources: who created or modified them, when, with what role, and on the basis of what source.
In context
Provenance answers questions about how a resource arrived in its current state. A Provenance resource references the target resources (Provenance.target), the agents involved (Provenance.agent), the source data the change drew from (Provenance.entity), and the activity (Provenance.activity).
Use cases include audit trails for regulatory review, traceability for converted data (CDA-to-FHIR Provenance points to the source CDA), and clinical decision support (capturing which inputs drove a recommendation).
How Fire Arrow handles it
Fire Arrow stores Provenance as a standard FHIR resource. Integration pipelines that convert from other formats typically write a Provenance alongside the converted resources to maintain the link to the source.