Preparation for STU 3

The main focus of the meeting was preparing for the September ballot of release 3, which will be “STU  3” (note that we’re now using the title “STU” – Standard for Trial Use –  rather than “DSTU”  – Draft Standard for Trial Use – to reflect that important parts of the spec are well past the draft stage)

Planned key dates:

• ballot sign up starts: Jul 27
• ballot opens: Aug 12
• ballot closes: Sept 12
• Baltimore Connectathon / HL7 meeting: Sept 16-23
• tentative target release date for STU 3: Dec 31

STU 3 is currently planned to include:

• formats: no change to XML & JSON formats, but we will generate JSON schema. Introduction of RDF, tied to an ontological base
• RESTful API: no change to existing API, bar some clarifications around transactions. Maybe add Patch?
• Conformance – split out CodeSystem from Value set and minor changes to other resources, including the use of FluentPath instead of XPath
• Core Clinical, Administrative & Financial resources – ongoing minor changes in response to trial use and improved quality
• Continuing improvements to the Clinical Decision Support / Quality Measure framework
• A new framework for workflow / task management
• Draft mapping framework and CCDA/FHIR mapping guides

Alongside STU3, we expect to be providing a full tool chain to support implementation guides, covering editing, publishing, validation, and a public registry

Growing Maturity

One clear conclusion from this is that growing importance of the FMM (maturity model) – some areas of the specification are quite stable now, and are being managed accordingly. STU3 will probably be the last version of FHIR that doesn’t include any normative content.

With regard to FMM levels, In the lead up to the Montreal meeting, we surveyed the FHIR use base. From the results of that survey, we were able to make the following list of resources that are a priority for implementers:

Patient	Observation	Medication	Condition
Practitioner	DiagnosticReport	MedicationOrder	AllergyIntolerance
Organization	DiagnosticOrder	MedicationStatement	Immunization
Encounter	Bundle	MedicationAdministration	CarePlan
Person	Conformance	MedicationDispense	Procedure

Specifically, these are resources that the community would most like to see move up through the maturity levels, so the HL7 committees will prioritize these resources when preparing for ballot. Note, though, that it’s mostly up to the community to trial these resources now.

Specification Road map

The FHIR specification is now starting to have real breadth and depth, and we’ve had some comment about growing complexity of the specification. In particular, these areas have attracted comments:

• RDF / Base Ontology work
• Fluent Path and the new mapping language
• Clinical decision support resources
• CIMI / logical model development

The concern around this work indicates that we need to provide better a better road map to the specification on the main page, and the documentation page, so that people can better understand how these parts of the specification relate to each other, and which parts are relevant for them to implement.

We will be working on this over the next few months.

Acknowledgements

The FHIR community continues to grow in both size and importance. 1000s of implementers have taken part in connectathons, and the number of active contributers – committers, editors, work group co-chairs, facilitators, evangelists – just keeps growing. And not just the number, but the volume and depth of their input.

The FHIR community is our biggest asset – and it’s getting bigger every day.