HL7 FHIR Core Work Group

Background

FHIR is a healthcare information exchange standard that makes use of an HL7-defined set of “resources” to support information sharing by a variety of means, including documents, messages, services and RESTful interfaces. FHIR defines resources for clinical and administrative content (e.g. Observation, Patient, etc.) as well as resources for “infrastructure” purposes. Some of these infrastructure resources are used to define the standard itself – i.e. what the characteristics of resources are, what codes can be used in them, etc. This set of infrastructure resources is referred to as the “Conformance resources”. The complete list of them can be found here:

Mission

The FHIR Core Work Group (FHIR) is a content development work group (peer of other domain content work groups) responsible for the development and maintenance of a delineated set of the core components of the FHIR specification, thereby enabling other work groups to develop FHIR resources, profiles and implementation guides.

Charter

Work Products and Contributions to HL7 Processes

FHIR Core Work Group is responsible for FHIR content creation and maintenance in the following areas:

  • Developing and maintaining the FHIR conformance resources - those resources that define how to conform to FHIR and thus what FHIR is.
  • Developing and maintaining specification pages that define core capabilities of FHIR. E.g. Tags, bundles, compartments, extensibility, narrative -
  • Developing and maintaining the documentation around how FHIR bundles and resources is are used within the four interoperability paradigms (REST, Messaging, Documents and Services) and ensuring coherence and alignment of the content shared in those paradigms
  • Developing and maintaining the documentation around the HTTPRESTful transport of FHIR content for the various paradigms.
  • Acting as temporary custodian for FHIR artifacts which the FHIR Management Group has not found an alternative Work Group willing to and/or capable of managing the development and maintenance of.[1]
  • Acting as a coordination point for the development of publication and reference implementation tooling related to the FHIR specification.

<should have something here that reflects all of our joint sessions, but not sure what that should be>

  • Acting as nominala host for joint meetings between work groups and the “FHIR project” – which mostly but not exclusively means the FHIR Core work groupFHIR methodology and management.

Formal Relationships with Other HL7 Groups

The FHIR Core work group:

is a member of the Foundation and Technical Steering Division (FTSDD)

  • is subject to oversight by the Technical Steering Committee (TSC)
  • is responsible for developing and managing FHIR artifacts assigned to it by and adheres to the ballot and publication timelines established by the FHIR Management Group (FMG)
  • adheres to the design and maintenance methodology and quality guidelines established by Modeling and Methodology (MnM) work group
  • adheres to terminology methodology established jointly by the Vocabulary and Modeling and Methodology (MnM) work groups
  • consults coordinates with a number of work groups with who have a vested interest in the conformance resources and in any artifacts the FMG has granted FHIR Core temporary custodianship for.
  • Responsibilities:
  • The workgroups listed below are responsible for defining the core abstract architectural principles for these areas.
  • The FHIR core workgroup applies these principles in consultation with the respective workgroups in defining the FHIR design and implementation artifacts, i.e. the resources listed below.
  • These include:
  • Conformance & Guidance for Implementation/Testing (CGIT) – Conformance, Profile, ExtensionDefinition resources
  • Templates – Profile, ExtensionDefinition resources
  • Vocabulary – ValueSet, ConceptMap, NamingSystem resources
  • Structure Documents (SD) – Document paradigm
  • Infrastructure and Messaging (InM) – Messaging paradigm
  • Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) – Services Paradigm
  • Implementable Technology Specifications (ITS) – REST paradigm
  • Other work groups noted as “consulted” in the FHIR artifact spreadsheet maintained by the FMG where FHIR Core is identified as an owning work group

NOTE: specific resources listed are for example purposes. The specific resources and pages of joint interest will continue to evolve

  • consults colaboratescollaborates with the following organization support work groups:
  • Electronic Services & Toolsing (EST) –
  • FHIR reference implementations and support toolingProvide electronic access to the published FHIR standards
  • Responsible for overseeing the tools used for the development and maintenance of FHIR artifacts used by HL7 internal participants or managed by HL7 for support of the implementation community, particularly around the long term maintainability and sustainability.
  • Publishing – Publishing tooling and format
  • Includes applying all of the HL7 publication management precepts required
  • Includes Is responsible for archiving, ballot publication and ballot management of the FHIR specification.
  • Responsible for official release of the FHIR specification.
  • Responsible for ensuring that the FHIR publication format meets HL7 standard requirements, i.e. ANSI rules
  • Is consulted by a number of other work groups which have ownership of key aspects of FHIR, including:
  • Implementable Technology Specifications (ITS) – XML, JSON and RDF syntaxes
  • Modeling and Methodology (MnM) – FHIR Data types, mapping FHIR resources to RIM
  • Vocabulary – FHIR code-related data types (CodableConcept, Coding & code) in coordination with MnM
  • Security – FHIR Security-related pages

Notes:

  1. FHIR core does not have any authority over the activities of other work groups. Oversight of FHIR across work groups is a responsibility of the FHIR Management Group (FMG).
  2. FHIR Core is responsible for defining the base structures and technologies allowing FHIR interoperabilitymethodology of how FHIR works – i.e. what FHIR implementers do. Modeling and Methodology (MnM) is responsible for defining the methodology of how FHIR artifacts (resources, profiles, value sets, etc.) are created – i.e. what HL7 WGs produce. Where this methodology includes processes relating to conformance and profiling, this will be done in consultation with CGIT. Similarly, methodology related to terminology will be done in consultation with Vocabulary.
  3. Temporary assignments of resources are intended to be temporary. It is the responsibility of the FHIR Management Group (FMG) to assist work groups with bandwidth, training or other issues to ensure a long-term home for all FHIR artifacts.
  4. While FHIR Core is likely to be a magnet for FHIR-related engagement due to the name, the intention is for all domain-specific work to be conducted within its respective domain work groups.

Formal Relationships with Groups Outside of HL7

None

[1] The FHIR Management Group has the authority to temporarily or permanently assign resources to any work group. While resources may be assigned to FHIR Core on a temporary basis, they are not a “preferred” holder for otherwise unassigned resources. The FMG will make every effort to find the most appropriate work group based on bandwidth, domain expertise with the content and a willingness to undertake the work.