Topologies-related codes and current work in HL7 THO

[Joe M. Lamy (AEGIS.net)]

Hello all.

I wanted to make you aware of some current work in HL7 that intersects with our IHE work on topologies.

The US National Directory (NDH) IG has decided to incorporate some of the concepts and codes from our Topologies whitepaper, as you can see in the use case section and specific codes.

The NDH authors were asked to bring their codes to HL7 THO, which they did. Here is the ticket for that work, and it encompasses the creation of code systems as well as value sets.

Note that both the NDH IG build as well as the proposed THO codes are all defined in HL7. At this time, although IHE identified the need for these codes, the only one defined by IHE so far is DocShare-federate. 

I think we should determine which codes we think should be maintained by IHE moving forward, and advise HL7 accordingly in the THO ticket. At the very least, I think we should own any future codes specifically related to IHE federated profiles, such as we’ve discussed in various tickets here, here and here, and keep HL7s work open to that work.

As for the others:

• HIEInitiator, HIEResponder, PartnerConnectivity: they’ve defined these using the definitions from section 4.2.2 of our whitepaper, and they are not IHE-specific concepts. Are we ok letting these go? Are they ready to go?
• DocShare-federate-int, DocShare-federate-ext: as with the above, they used our definitions, but these are in the gray area of relating to federation capabilities that so far we’ve only considered with respect to IHE profiles. Would these be appropriate to use for a HISP to Org relationship over Direct?

I suppose my main concern is that we never actually went through the process to make these normative ourselves, and HL7 taking them over as-is means we are skipping that degree of analysis entirely.

Thoughts?

Joe Lamy

Specification Expert

AEGIS.net, Inc.

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Email: joe....@aegis.net

Phone: (321) 945-3486

[Spencer LaGesse]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. 

While I don't have any specific concerns with moving these codes to HL7 THO, I will say that I think they should carry a certain amount of skepticism since AFAIK nobody is using these in the real world today. So I think the risk of their definitions requiring changes is substantial. 

"DocShare-federate-int, DocShare-federate-ext: as with the above, they used our definitions, but these are in the gray area of relating to federation capabilities that so far we’ve only considered with respect to IHE profiles. Would these be appropriate to use for a HISP to Org relationship over Direct?"

I think so? In this case, a HISP is a parent affiliation of the Organizations it contracts with, and in Direct I would represent the HISPS as communicating directly (though I'm not sure how exactly we would use Endpoint for Direct when combined with our models). 

-Spencer