STU3 Candidate

This page is part of the FHIR Specification (v1.8.0: STU 3 Draft). The current version which supercedes this version is 5.0.0. For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions

1.8 STU 3 Ballot Welcome

Hello and welcome to the third FHIR STU ballot!

This specification represents a series of significant changes and enhancements from the second FHIR Draft Standard for Trial Use specification HL7 published in October, 2015. It also includes changes resulting from committee meetings, connectathons, 1000's of change proposals, and collaborations with other standards organizations. A summary of changes and a complete list of changes to resources and data types are available.

FHIR is presently a "Specification for Trial Use" (STU) ballot. FHIR is no longer a "Draft" specification. Indeed, there are many implementations in production all across the world, or in preparation for production adoption. There are still some parts of the specification in an early stage of development, while other parts are quite mature and stable. In fact, as of this version, most DSTU 2 patient resources are still valid STU 3 Patient resources, though this is not a requirement - yet. We anticipate that some content will become normative on the next ballot after this one. For full details concerning the maturity process in the FHIR specification, see the FHIR maturity Model.

The FHIR specification is presented as a series of interlinked HTML pages. They can either be reviewed online or can be downloaded for exploration on your own device. (175MB zip, ~1GB unzipped). The scope of the FHIR Ballot is any page where the URL starts with http://hl7.org/fhir/2016Sep.

A few notes to consider:

  • Pay close attention to the FMM level of the artifacts (as described above)
  • Not all of the existing outstanding issues will be resolved prior to the STU ballot passing. Some may be left open to allow feedback from the early adopter community.
  • This specification is complete enough to be implementable in a variety of healthcare scenarios, including supporting the "Common Meaningful Use Data Set" and other content from the Consolidated CDA implementation guide. However, the set of resources is not complete. Resources may evolve and new ones will be introduced over time. Refer to FHIR Timelines for additional guidance on expectations around the evolution of the FHIR specification, or the road maps on the module pages.

1.8.1 Balloting Rules

HL7 ballot rules require that participants sign up prior to opening of the ballot. If you did not sign up in advance, you can still submit comments using the Propose a Change link at the bottom of each page of the specification. Feedback from balloters will be given priority, but all suggestions will be considered as much as time allows. (And be sure to sign up to the FHIR list-server and/or follow the #FHIR hash-tag so you don't miss the chance to vote in the next ballot cycle.)

If you are signed up to ballot, you can download the balloting spreadsheet from the Ballot Desktop . All ballot feedback must be provided using the spreadsheet template provided. (There's a help tab that explains the meaning of each of the columns.) For FHIR, you have the option of making your comments directly in the spreadsheet or submitting your comment using the FHIR Change Tracker tool. If you take the latter approach, you must include a reference to each tracker item in your ballot spreadsheet along with a vote (negative, affirmative typo, etc.). All spreadsheets must be submitted along with an overall vote by end of day Eastern time on the designated ballot closure date for the comments to be considered as part of ballot disposition.

Note: By using the tracker, you reduce some of the administrative effort of managing the ballot process. As well, you will receive notifications when comments are made on your ballot comment as well as when dispositions are made. Comments not submitted to the tracker as part of the ballot process will be migrated to the tracker after all ballot submissions are received.

When submitting your ballot feedback, if you have a general comment on something that you see occurring multiple times, please include at least a couple of specific locations where you see the issue. As much as possible, capture each separate concern as a distinct row in the ballot sheet or separate tracker item . (If using tracker items for your submissions, you MUST still submit a ballot spreadsheet referencing the relevant tracker items.) It makes our job of reconciling much easier. Also, don't forget to fill in the section numbers (gray numbers to the left of each heading) and URLs.

If you have questions that are interfering with the ability to review the specification or submit ballot comments, please contact one of the co-chairs of the FHIR Management Group: Lloyd McKenzie or David Hay.

Thanks for taking the time to review the FHIR specification. We appreciate any feedback you can provide.

1.8.2 Balloting Roadmap

You can review which ever parts of the specification that are of interest in any order you wish. However, if you are not familiar with the FHIR specification, you may wish to follow this roadmap, by clicking on the Documentation link and read through at least the following:

For context:

To see scope:

  • Click on the Resources link at the top to get a sense of what resources exist and maybe drill into a couple of them to see what they look like before coming back to the Documentation tab for more context

To understand base approach:

To understand key infrastructure:

For context for this ballot:

Feel free to drill down into any other sections of interest. If you want to ensure a complete review of the whole spec, the Table of Contents may be a useful guide.