This page is part of the Canonical Resource Management Infrastructure Implementation Guide (v1.0.0-ballot: STU1 Ballot 1) based on FHIR R4. . For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions

Packaging

To facilitate publishing and distribution of canonical resources and knowledge artifacts, this Implementation Guide provides guidance on how to package knowledge artifacts, either independently, or as part of a collection of related artifacts.

Packaging Artifacts

FHIR Bundle

In general, artifacts such as libraries, measures, and test cases are packaged as a Bundle of type transaction. However, since large artifact packages may span multiple bundles, the type collection may be used as well. In that case, the bundles should be processed as a unit.

An artifact bundle contains the artifact as the first entry in the bundle, and optionally the dependencies and associated artifacts as subsequent entries as follows:

1. Artifact: The main artifact resource for the package (such as a PlanDefinition, Measure, or Library)
2. Dependencies: Any dependencies, including libraries, terminologies, and other artifacts required for the artifact
3. Test Cases: Any test cases defined for the artifact

*Note that if an artifact package is large enough to require segmentation in multiple bundles, use of transaction bundles may not be feasible.

NOTE: It is recommended that each resource in the transaction is a conditional create using the canonical URL and version as search parameters, e.g.:

  "entry": [
    { 
      "resource": { 
        "resourceType": "Library",
        "url": "http://example.org/Library/SomeLibrary",
        "version": "0.1.0",
        // ...
      },
      "request" :{
        "method": "POST",
        "url": "Library",
        "ifNotExist": "url=http://example.org/Library/SomeLibrary&version=0.1.0"
      }
    }
  ]

FHIR Packages

Artifacts may also be packaged following the FHIR Package specification. This involves creating a NPM package (tarball archive with a package.json). The IGPublisher build tool creates a FHIR Package when building an implementation guide.

See also: FHIR Package Specification

Packaging Artifacts

To support usage of a knowledge artifact, the artifact package contains the following general components:

• Structured representation of the artifact and associated metadata (the artifact resource)
• Human readable description of the artifact contents (the Narrative of the artifact resource)
• Machine readable description of the logic involved in the artifact (in the Library resource as additional attachments containing the Expression Logical Model (ELM) content for the CQL, for example)
• Optionally, all the required libraries referenced by the library, recursively (included as Library resources)
• Optionally, all the required terminologies referenced by the library, or any required libraries (included as CodeSystem and/or ValueSet resources)

The following are conformance requirements when packaging an artifact:

Conformance Requirement 6.1 (Artifact Packaging):

1. The first entry in an artifact bundle SHALL be the artifact resource conforming to the appropriate artifact profile(s)
2. Artifact bundles MAY include any libraries referenced by the primary library
3. Artifact bundles MAY include any code systems and value sets referenced by the primary library or any required libraries.

Intellectual Property of Packaging

Conformance Requirement 6.4 (Intellectual Property Considerations):

1. Artifacts distributed in this way SHALL carry the appropriate copyright and intellectual property declarations.