Minutes of Conformance SIG - September 11, 2000
Committee: Conformance SIG
CoChair: Kathy Blyler, Jack Harrington
Author: Kathy Blyler
ATTENDEES:
Conformance Meeting AM
Bas van Poppel
Hiscom
Dave Shaver
NeoTool
Eliot Muir
Interfaceware
Ioana Singureanu Eversolve
Karen Van
HL7
Hentenryck
Kathy Blyler
SMS
Mary Ann Juurlink Killdara
Pete Rontey
Dept. of Veterans
Affairs
Serafina Versaggi Care Science
Bvpopel@hiscom.nl
Shaver@neotool.com
Eliot.muir@interfaceware.com
Ioana@eversolve.com
Karenvan@hl7.org
Kathryn.blyler@smed.com
Juurlink@killdara.com
Peter.Rontey@med.va.gov
Sverseggi@carescience.com
Discussion Items
This session started with the group expressing frustration for the very slow
progress that has been made to date. However, with significant progress on
tangible work products presented at this meeting, the members of the
Conformance SIG rallied to pave the way for swifter future progress. This team
enthusiastically participated in a very productive meeting. The following minutes
document the session:

Mary Ann Juurlink, Killdara Corp., presented examples of completed
conformance profiles created by her organization. Mary Ann started with the
conformance profiles developed by the Andover Working Group (AWG) and
updated them to fit the needs of her organization and to reflect enhancement
to the Specification for Message Profile Content. Mary Ann will seek subject
matter expert reviewers from the Orders/Observations Technical Committee
and the Patient Administration Financial Management (PAFM) Technical
Committee. Mary Ann included XML DTD with each of her profiles. These
DTD use long names as tags instead of the short names mandated by the
XML SIG. Since XML DTD are not a required piece of a conformance profile,
the group agreed that Killdara profiles do not need to be updated. Mary Ann
is working with the XML SIG to resolve the DTD discrepancy. Currently,
Killdara’s profiles are all contained within two documents. In order to register
them with HL7, Mary Ann has agreed to pull them apart so that each of the
files could be posted and accessed more easily.

Karen Van Hentenryck, HL7 Associate Executive Director, attended a portion
of the meeting to discuss the possibility of creating a conformance
registration area on the HL7 web site. The group provided the necessary
requirements:
- Ability to collect administrative information, e.g., company submitting,
primary contact, HL7 Version, Profile Version, Level of Conformance, date of
submission.
– All users to have the ability to post a conformance profile. Users must
download the profile in order to make changes. HQ and the profile owner will
have the ability to make cosmetic changes without updating the version of the
profile.
- Posted profiles must be given a unique identifier.
- Content changes must have a new version number.
- Ability to search the repository by event, submitting company, and level of
conformance profile.
Karen will discuss the requirements with Bob Dolin. Bob is leading the HL7
Web Advisory Board. Karen will let us know the status of our request.

Ioana Singureanu, Eversolve, suggested that the Conformance SIG sponsor
a tutorial for the next meeting. Ioana and Mary Ann Juurlink agreed to
develop the tutorial and present it. Pete Rontey, Department of Veterans’
Affairs, agreed to provide a demonstration of his tool during this class. We
talked to David Marotta and Abdul-Malik Shakir, Education TC co-chairs,
regarding this endeavor. We were instructed to develop the tutorial summary
and we could schedule it for the January meeting. Kathy Blyler agreed to
write the summary and forward to the presented for review.

We discussed a need for a common conformance methodology throughout
all of HL7. We identified a number of different conformance methods
numerous committees are using to solve the same problems within HL7 V2.x,
conformance profiles, conformance-based queries, clinical templates, etc.
Bas van Poppel, Hiscom, agreed to write a write paper to begin the
development of one common conformance method with varying levels that
will easily transfer from HL7 V2.x into HL7 V3.

The Conformance SIG met jointly with the Control Query Technical
Committee to discuss the alignment of the Specification for Message Profile
Content and HL7 V2.4 Chapter 5 – Conformance-based Queries. Much of
the session was spent educating each other regarding the conformance
concepts in the two different documents. The groups agreed the
philosophies touted in the documents are nearly identical, but we may need
to work to continue alignment of terminology and process. Doug Pratt and
Kathy Blyler agreed to work together to make recommendation regarding
were to align. One fundamental difference was the Control/Query concepts
of multiple levels of conformance and that optionality could be allowed. The
Conformance SIG agreed to allow the registration of profiles in varying levels
of conformance as long as the user could easily identify the level of
conformance documented.

Pete Rontey, Department of Veterans Affairs, demonstrated a tool he
developed. The group agreed that with minor modification the tool could be
used to facilitate the creation of conformance profiles. In its present state,
this tool can support multiple versions of the HL7 V2.x Standard and allows
for the addition of Z segments. This tool can create, manipulate, store,
retrieve, and report message specifications. It also creates an XML
representation, but this representation is different than the one mandated by
the XML committee. Pete and Mary Ann are planning to get together out-ofcycle to figure out how much effort will be necessary to enhance the tool to
support the Conformance SIG Specification for Message Profile Content.
Other questions must also be answered, such as who will support the tool,
who will maintain the tool, how will it be distributed, etc.? Kathy will begin
communication with HL7 HQ to see what the procedures are for evaluating
tools for HL7 work.

The group agreed to schedule biweekly conference calls. These will take
place on Thursday, 2-3 EST on the following dates 10/5, 10/19, 11/2, 11/16,
12/7, 12/21. Please mark your calendars. For a reminder of these dates and
times, subscribe to the Conformance list server via the HL7 web site.
Action Items
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Kathy Blyler will update the Specification for Message Profile Content
document to reflect the editorial resolutions. This is an uncompleted item
from last meeting.
Kathy Blyler will schedule the biweekly conference calls via HL7 HQ.
Kathy Blyler will write the Conformance Tutorial summary and forward to the
presenters for review. Kathy will coordinate with the Education TC co-chairs
to schedule the tutorial for the January meeting.
Pete Rontey will package the tool and send it to identified members so they
can test the tool and identify any holes.
Mary Ann Juurlink will send Pete the latest Specification for Message Profile
Content and one completed profile. Pete will implement this profile into the
tool.
Kathy Blyler will follow-up with HL7 HQ regarding registering profiles and the
other tooling issues.
Mary Ann Juurlink will coordinate a working meeting with Pete, Ioana, and
herself to identify how the tool needs to change to support the current
Specification for Message Profile Content. This meeting is tentatively
scheduled for early November.
Bas van Poppel will author a white paper to begin the development of one
common conformance method with varying levels that will easily transfer from
HL7 V2.x into HL7 V3.
Ioana and Mary Ann will create the Conformance Tutorial. Mary Ann will
develop a scenario.
Doug Pratt and Kathy Blyler agreed to work together to make
recommendation regarding were to align between the Specification for
Message Profile Content and Conformance-based Queries.
Proposed Agenda for September 2000

Demonstration of Conformance Profile Tool

Review Conformance Profile registration process

Conduct Conformance Tutorial

Progress work on conformance methodology

Discuss alignment with XML SIG and Control Query Technical Committee