This page is part of the Person-Centered Outcomes (PCO) Implementation Guide (v1.0.0-ballot: STU 1 Ballot 1) based on FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) R4. No current official version has been published yet. For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions

Formal Specification

This section defines additional requirements and guidance relevant to this IG as a whole. The FHIR Conformance Rules define the conformance verbs - SHALL, SHOULD, MAY - used in this IG.

Claiming Conformance to a Person-Centered Outcomes Profile

To claim conformance to a Profile in this IG, servers SHALL:

• Be able to populate all Profile data elements that have a minimum cardinality >= 1 and/or flagged as Must Support as defined by that profile’s StructureDefinition.

Must Support

The following rules apply to all Person-Centered Outcomes Profile elements marked as Must Support. Must Support on any profile data element SHALL be interpreted as follows:

Data Consumer System Requirements

• Data Consumer Systems SHALL be capable of displaying the data elements for human use.
• Data Consumer Systems SHOULD be capable of storing the data elements for other uses (such as record keeping of data used for clinical use).
• Data Consumer Systems SHALL be capable of processing resource instances containing the data element without generating an error or causing the application to fail.
• Data Consumer Systems SHALL interpret missing data elements within resources instances as not being present on the Data Sources system’s or as being withheld for privacy or business reasons.

Profiles used by this IG, but defined in other IGs, inherit the definition of Must Support from their respective guides.