A set of rules or how FHIR is used to solve a particular problem. This resource is used to gather all the parts of an implementation guide into a logical whole, and to publish a computable definition of all the parts.

An implementation guide is able to define default profiles that must apply to any use of a resource, so validation services may need to take one or more implementation guide resources when validating.

An absolute URL that is used to identify this implementation guide when it is referenced in a specification, model, design or an instance. This SHALL be a URL, SHOULD be globally unique, and SHOULD be an address at which this implementation guide is (or will be) published.

This is required to allow hosting Implementation Guides on multiple different servers, and to allow for the editorial process.

The identifier that is used to identify this version of the Implementation Guide when it is referenced in a specification, model, design or instance. This is an arbitrary value managed by the Implementation Guide author manually.

There may be multiple resource versions of the Implementation Guide that have this same identifier. The resource version id will change for technical reasons, whereas the stated version number needs to be under the author's control.

A free text natural language name identifying the Implementation Guide.

Not expected to be globally unique.

The status of the Implementation Guide.

Allows filtering of Implementation Guides that are appropriate for use vs. not.

This Implementation Guide was authored for testing purposes (or education/evaluation/marketing), and is not intended to be used for genuine usage.

Allows filtering of Implementation Guides that are appropriate for use vs. not.

The name of the individual or organization that published the implementation guide.

Helps establish the "authority/credibility" of the implementation guide. May also allow for contact.

Usually an organization, but may be an individual. This item SHOULD be populated unless the information is available from context.

Contacts to assist a user in finding and communicating with the publisher.

May be a web site, an email address, a telephone number (tel:), etc.

The name of an individual to contact regarding the implementation guide.

If there is no named individual, the telecom is for the organization as a whole.

Contact details for individual (if a name was provided) or the publisher.

The date this version of the implementation guide was published. The date must change when the business version changes, if it does, and it must change if the status code changes. In addition, it should change when the substantive content of the implementation guide changes.

Additional specific dates may be added as extensions.

A free text natural language description of the Implementation Guide and its use.

This field can be used for things such as why the Implementation Guide was written, comments about misuse, instructions for clinical use and interpretation, literature references, examples from the paper world, etc. It is not a rendering of the Implementation Guide as conveyed in Implementation Guide.text. This item SHOULD be populated unless the information is available from context.

The content was developed with a focus and intent of supporting the contexts that are listed. These terms may be used to assist with indexing and searching of implementation guides. The most common use of this element is to represent the country / jurisdiction for which this implementation guide was defined.

Assist in searching for appropriate implementation guide.

A copyright statement relating to the implementation guide and/or its contents. Copyright statements are generally legal restrictions on the use and publishing of the details of the constraints and mappings.

The version of the FHIR specification on which this ImplementationGuide is based - this is the formal version of the specification, without the revision number, e.g. [publication].[major].[minor], which is 1.2.0 for this version.

An Implementation Guide should specify the target it applies to, as ImplementationGuides are rarely valid across multiple versions of FHIR.

Another implementation guide that this implementation depends on. Typically, an implementation guide uses value sets, profiles etc.defined in other implementation guides.

How the dependency is represented when the guide is published.

For information about processing included guides, see [Including Guides]{implementationguide.html#include}.

Where the dependency is located.

When a guide is published, and the type is 'include', this will be a relative reference within the guide.

A logical group of resources. Logical groups can be used when building pages.

The name for the group, as used in page.package.

Human readable text describing the package.

A resource that is part of the implementation guide. Conformance resources (value set, structure definition, conformance statements etc.) are obvious candidates for inclusion, but any kind of resource can be included as an example resource.

Why the resource is included in the guide.

This element is provided so that implementation guide tooling does not have to guess the purpose of including a resource in the implementation guide based on the type or context.

The purpose alters the way that a resource is handled when a guide is built. At present, only value set and concept map resources are allowed for terminology resources, and only StructureDefinition, SearchParameter, and OperationDefinition for profile. Dictionaries must be bundles of DataElement or Medication at this time.

A human assigned name for the resource. All resources SHOULD have a name, but the name may be extracted from the resource (e.g. ValueSet.name).

A description of the reason that a resource has been included in the implementation guide.

This is mostly used with examples to explain why it is present (though they can have extensive comments in the examples).

A short code that may be used to identify the resource throughout the implementation guide.

This is used when generating schematrons from profiles, for example, but has other uses. Publishing tooling may autogenerate this value, but a human assigned value is more useful. This value must be unique within an implementation guide (across included guides as well).

Where this resource is found.

Usually this is a relative URL that locates the resource within the implementation guide. If you authoring an implementation guide, and will publish it using the FHIR publication tooling, use a URI that may point to a resource, or to one of various alternative representations (e.g. spreadsheet). The tooling will convert this when it publishes it.

Another resource that this resource is an example for. This is mostly used for resources that are included as examples of StructureDefinitions.

Examples: * StructureDefinition -> Any * ValueSet -> expansion * OperationDefinition -> Parameters * Questionnaire -> QuestionnaireResponse.

A set of profiles that all resources covered by this implementation guide must conform to.

See Default Profiles for a discussion of which resources are 'covered' by an implementation guide.

The type of resource that all instances must conform to.

The type must match that of the profile that is referred to, but is made explicit here as a denormalization so that a system processing the implementation guide resource knows which resources the profile applies to even if the profile itself is not available.

A reference to the profile that all instances must conform to.

A binary file that is included in the implementation guide when it is published.

This is principally included for the FHIR publishing tool, but may be useful when extracting and reusing content from the implementation guide.

A page / section in the implementation guide. The root page is the implementation guide home page.

Pages automatically become sections if they have sub-pages. By convention, the home page is called index.html.

The source address for the page.

The publishing tool will autogenerate source for list (source = n/a), and inject included implementations for include (source = uri of guide to include).

A short name used to represent this page in navigational structures such as table of contents, bread crumbs, etc.

The kind of page that this is. Some pages are autogenerated (list, example), and other kinds are of interest so that tools can navigate the user to the page of interest.

For constructed pages, what kind of resources to include in the list.

For constructed pages, a list of packages to include in the page (or else empty for everything).

The format of the page.

This is primarily for the publishing tool, that will convert all pages to html format. HTML pages are pre-processed, see xxxx.

Nested Pages/Sections under this page.

The implementation guide breadcrumbs are generated from this structure.