This template represents the current smoking status of the patient as specified in Meaningful Use (MU) Stage 2 requirements. Historic smoking status observations as well as details about the smoking habit (e.g., how many per day) would be represented in the Tobacco Use template.

This template represents a “snapshot in time” observation, simply reflecting what the patient’s current smoking status is at the time of the observation. As a result, the effectiveTime is constrained to a time stamp, and will approximately correspond with the author/time. Details regarding the time period when the patient is/was smoking would be recorded in the Tobacco Use template.

If the patient's current smoking status is unknown, the value element must be populated with SNOMED CT code 266927001 to communicate "Unknown if ever smoked" from the Current Smoking Status Value Set.