HL 7 Australia: Functional Specification

HL7 Australia Terminology Service: Maintenance and Update Server

Version History

Version Number / Version Date / Summary of Changes / Author
V00-01 / 26th June 2015 / Original draft in Confluence / Paul Frosdick
V00-02 / 8th July 2015 / Original requirements transferred into Word format and further requirements added / Paul Frosdick
V00-03 / 14th July 2015 / Editorial changes and the addition of Requirement 015 following review by Heather Grain / Paul Frosdick
V00-04 / 22nd July 2015 / Addition of Requirement 016 following feedback from Heather Grain / Paul Frosdick

Contents

1.Product Purpose

2.Product Users

3.Assumptions

4.Functional Requirements

Terminology Services Requirement 001

Terminology Services Requirement 002

Terminology Services Requirement 003

Terminology Services Requirement 004

Terminology Services Requirement 005

Terminology Services Requirement 006

Terminology Services Requirement 007

Terminology Services Requirement 008

Terminology Services Requirement 009

Terminology Services Requirement 011

Terminology Services Requirement 012

Terminology Services Requirement 013

Terminology Services Requirement 014

Terminology Services Requirement 015

Terminology Services Requirement 016

1.Product Purpose

The HL7 Australia terminology service maintenance and update server (terminology service) are/is the software that creates and controls the repository for those concepts, descriptions, relationships and cross maps that collectively define the total scope of coded clinical and administrative content required by HL7 Australia standards and their implementations. As such they/it are the organisation’s single source of truth for all coded terminology components utilised by the organisation and its members.

2.Product Users

The terminology service will be used by approved members and contractors of HL7 Australia acting as:

  • IT development and support providers
  • Terminology developer providers
  • Terminology standards developers

3.Assumptions

The following assumptions have been made in the development of this specification:

  • HL7 Australia may choose to use different software solutions for the maintenance and update aspect of its total terminology services solution from those used for the distribution of published terminology components to its membership and implementation communities
  • The performance behaviour of any terminology services solution will have been demonstrated (by reference if required) to meet the day to day business requirements of organisations performing large scale terminology management operations of a similar nature to those anticipated to be performed by HL7 Australia.

4.Functional Requirements

Terminology Services Requirement 001

Description / The terminology services shall be able to define, load, store and update multiple machine readable code systems within a single product with a single, defined data model.
Rationale / HL7 and HL7 Australia implementations reference multiple internal and third party terminologies. In order to manage and distribute the value sets of these terminologies that support standards implementation HL7 Australia requires a single source of truth sufficiently robust to manage the range and complexity of terminologies used by the organisation to be deployed.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • The terminology services shall be able to define, load, store and maintain the terminology tables for all HL7 products (Version 2, Version 3, CDA and FIHR), SNOMED CT and LOINC as a minimum representative set.
  • The terminology services shall be able to export the minimum representative terminology set in their native publication formats AND in HL7 Australia created publication formats defined within the services.

Satisfaction score / 5
Dissatisfaction score / 5

Terminology Services Requirement 002

Description / The terminology services shall be able to preserve the 'features' of the terminology models it loads so that these features can be leveraged as required by HL7 Australia.
Rationale / The 'features' of each terminology are the value adds they bring over and above a simple flat list of data. Without the capacity to preserve those features the potential of the terminologies used by HL7 Australia will be diminished.
Examples will include terminology specific value sets, extension models and concept attributes - definitional and otherwise.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • The differing 'features' of at least 3 international (or 2 international and 1 US/UK/Australian national) terminologies will be capable of demonstration.
  • The reference set feature of SNOMED CT and/or SNOMED CT extensions will be one of those 'feature' capable of demonstration.

Satisfaction score / 4
Dissatisfaction score / 4

Terminology Services Requirement 003

Description / The terminology services shall be able to upload and publish new versions of all loaded terminologies at the request of a system administrator.
Rationale / HL7 Australia's chosen terminologies represent the current state of knowledge within the content domains they cover. These terminologies are updated at a frequency commensurate with rate of change of knowledge within their covered domains and the terminology services shall be required to support the flow through of that knowledge into HL7 standards and processes at a similarly commensurate pace.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • The terminology services will not be able to automatically update and publish the new version of an electronic terminology without an approval command from a system administrator.
  • Following administrator approval the terminology services shall load, update and publish the new version without further manual intervention.

Satisfaction score / 5
Dissatisfaction score / 5

Terminology Services Requirement 004

Description / The terminology services shall support the local extension of third party, loaded terminologies where such extension is permitted by the terminology publisher.
Rationale / A core part of HL7 Australia's business is to localise HL7 International standards so that they are optimised for Australian use cases. One element of such localisation is likely to include the addition of content either not yet provided by the terminology publisher or not within the direct scope of the publisher's remit. The functionality to extend is therefore necessary to support such requirements as and when they arise.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • The terminology services shall have a user interface component that allows new content to be created to loaded terminologies.
  • The terminology services shall clearly differentiate between terminology provider and extension content.
  • Where the loaded terminology publisher specifies governance criteria for extensions to be considered 'legal' the terminology services shall support them.

Satisfaction score / 5
Dissatisfaction score / 3

Terminology Services Requirement 005

Description / The terminology services shall support the definition of value sets of content by extensional as well as intentional definition.
Rationale / HL7 Australia standards will require to reference discreet sets of terminology components assembled to support the use case(s) underpinning the standard's implementation. Some value sets (typically those of limited size) will be best defined by explicitly listing the members of the set e.g. a value set for patient gender. The VS must support value set definition in this manner. However, other value sets may well be defined by the characteristics of their members: Such value sets are better defined by describing the computational behaviour of those characteristics and letting the terminology services logically create the members by querying those characteristics.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • The terminology services will allow a value set to be created by picking members one at a time.
  • The terminology services will allow appropriately skilled HL7 Australia members to define the content of a value set by creating groups of attribute | value pairs in accordance with the terminology in question's logical model.
  • The VS will allow value sets to be created by defining the logical join criteria between previously defined value sets.

Satisfaction score / 4
Dissatisfaction score / 4

Terminology Services Requirement 006

Description / The terminology services shall identify change impacts created in value sets where a set member is changed as a result of an update to its source terminology.
Rationale / Where a value set member is changed as a result of a terminology update the validity of that member (and any members derived from it) will require review. In order to efficiently and effectively manage such change impacts without the overhead of manually reviewing all changed components a change impact report is critically important.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • All loaded terminology components that form part of a value set that are changed in a new terminology release are identified in a dedicated report.
  • The report identifies the component, the nature of the change, and where the component has been replaced by an alternative, the identity and value of the replacement component.
  • The report also identifies those standards in which the value set is used.

Satisfaction score / 5
Dissatisfaction score / 5

Terminology Services Requirement 007

Description / The terminology services shall be able to support the definition and maintenance of map tables between those terminologies loaded within it.
Rationale / It is anticipated that in order to support its implementation community migrate between standards versions in the near and longer terms HL7 Australia will need to create unilateral and bilateral mapping relationships between certain terminology sets. The terminology services must therefore support this activity as a core function.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • The terminology services shall support the creation of user defined and rules-based maps.
  • The terminology services user interface support the clear visualisation and definition of any mapping relationship between required to be created.
  • The terminology service shall be able to identify where a map is published and the administrative metadata associated with map tables and their use

Satisfaction score / 3
Dissatisfaction score / 5

Terminology Services Requirement 008

Description / The terminology services shall support the definition and maintenance of map tables between a loaded terminology and an external code set referenced at the time the map is applied.
Rationale / It is possible that in order to support its implementation members of the community migrate between common proprietary code sets and those supported by its standards versions that in the longer term HL7 Australia will need to create unilateral and bilateral mapping relationships between its referenced terminology sets and between its referenced terminology sets and others which will not be directly stored and maintained in the terminology services. The terminology services must therefore support this activity.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • The terminology services user interface support the clear visualisation and definition of any mapped relationship required to be created, including where the map in question references only one loaded terminology and one externally derived code set.
  • The terminology service shall be able to identify where a map is used within publications and the administrative metadata associated with that map and its use

Satisfaction score / 5
Dissatisfaction score / 3

Terminology Services Requirement 009

Description / The terminology services shall allow export of value sets from specific terminologies in a format compliant with any formal specifications published by the owner.
Rationale / It is anticipated that, in order to support its implementation community to use value sets of terminology components it publishes to facilitate use of its standards, HL7 Australia shall require the facility to make those sets available in any formal structure published by the terminology owner and with which implementers are already familiar.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • Conformance testing on the structure and content of a value set exported from the terminology services in a mandated format will meet the terminology owner's published requirements.

Satisfaction score / 3
Dissatisfaction score / 2

Terminology Services Requirement 010

Description / The terminology services shall identify all change impacts to stored map tables where an individual map member – source or target – is changed as a result of a version update to a loaded terminology.
Rationale / Where anindividual map member is changed as a result of a terminology update the validity of that member will require review. In order to efficiently achieve this business requirement the automated identification of changed map members is of significant benefit to HL7 Australia's operations.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • All loaded terminology components that form part of a map set that are changed in a new terminology release are identified in a dedicated report.
  • The report identifies the component, the nature of the change, and where the component has been replaced by an alternative, the identity and value of the replacement component.
  • The terminology service shall be able to identify where a map is used within publications and the administrative metadata associated with a map and its use

Satisfaction score / 5
Dissatisfaction score / 5

Terminology Services Requirement 011

Description / The terminology services shall identify all change impacts to stored, intensionally defined value sets where a value set definitional component is changed as a result of a version update to a loaded terminology.
Rationale / Where an intensional value set definitional component is changed as a result of a terminology update the validity of that component and all value set members that are calculated from it will require review. In order to efficiently achieve this business requirement the automated identification of changed value set definitional components is of significant benefit to HL7 Australia's operations.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • All loaded terminology components that form part of an intensional value set definition that are changed in a new terminology release are identified in a dedicated report.
  • All loaded terminology components that form part of a value set that are changed in a new terminology release are identified in a dedicated report.
  • The reports identify the component, the nature of the change, and where the component has been replaced by an alternative, the identity and value of the replacement component.

Satisfaction score / 5
Dissatisfaction score / 5

Terminology Services Requirement 012

Description / The terminology services shall permit the map tablesrepresented in it to be defined by multiple, user defined relationship types so that the full meaning of the relationship between the concepts is captured.
Rationale / In supporting its implementation community migrate between standards versions it is anticipated that some of the maps created will not link exactly equivalent concepts. In order to manage the semantic drift that will otherwise occur HL7 Australia will need require the ability to define the semantics of any map relationship through the creation of specific relationship types and the terminology services must therefore support this activity as a core function.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • The terminology services shall support the creation of user defined relationships that define the meaning of any individual map row.

Satisfaction score / 3
Dissatisfaction score / 5

Terminology Services Requirement 013

Description / The terminology services shall ensure the full change and version history of all changed components within each terminology be recorded and preserved when updating and publishing of all new versions of loaded terminologies.
Rationale / The dynamic nature of the terminologies to be maintained in and deployed from the terminology services inevitably dictates changes will occur and analyses and decisions driven from that changing data will also necessarily change. In order to support backwards compatibility, audit and potential medico-legal requirements in this context of change the terminology services must be capable of recreating the results of analyses and decisions at any given moment in time. History preservation of concepts, relationships (including map relationships) and descriptions is considered the means by which this can be achieved.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • The VS will maintain and update a full history table (or equivalent mechanism) for every component of each loaded terminology.
  • The history of any component being viewed through the user interface to the VS contents shall be capable of being examined

Satisfaction score / 4
Dissatisfaction score / 4

Terminology Services Requirement 014

Description / The terminology services shall support the definition, modelling, maintenance and export of proprietary HL7 Australiaterminologies.
Rationale / It is probably that the collective terminology requirements of HL7 Australia will extend beyond those domains supported by external terminology providers. It is therefore important that the terminology services support the creation of bespoke terminologies that support either internal, coded data requirements or the modelling and population of 3rd party code sets that are not provided as machine readable code sets capable of API mediated import.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • The terminology services shall have a user interface that supports the creation and maintenance of all metadata components necessary to define the model of a bespoke coded terminology.
  • The terminology services shall have a user interface that supports the creation, maintenance and visualisation of all supported component classes.

Satisfaction score / 4
Dissatisfaction score / 5

Terminology Services Requirement 015

Description / The terminology services shall allow export of all terminology components from specific terminologies in a csv format.
Rationale / In addition to supporting potential distribution requirements, created components will require a level of clinical assurance that is anticipated to be performed outside the terminology and its associated tools. The export of a csv file allows data to be loaded into ubiquitous desk top applications for review by individuals outside the schooled users of task specific software.
Source / Paul Frosdick
Fit criteria /
  • The content of a defined set of test sets will be exported into a csv file with 100% completeness and accuracy

Satisfaction score / 5
Dissatisfaction score / 5

Terminology Services Requirement 015

Description / The terminology service will be able to maintain metadata associated with the relationship between terminology content and their publication in HL7 standards and provide input to that publication process.
Rationale / In order to govern the implementation of terminologies across its suite of standards HL7 Australia needs to be able to identify where in its standards terminology components are referenced so that balloting on and approval of changes and their impact on implementation can be efficiently achieved.
Source / Heather Grain
Fit criteria /
  • The terminology service shall be able to identify where terminology components are used within publications and the administrative metadata associated with value set definitions and their use

Satisfaction score / 5
Dissatisfaction score / 4

Terminology Services Requirement 016