Datatypes R2 Issue 55

Introduction

Update mode and audit trail are documented in the [HL7 Update Mode and Accountability History] section of the January v3 ballot. (For some reason it's missing from the May 2006 ballot . . .)

These elements are not specifically a "datatypes issue" as they also impact associations. However, their impact on datatypes ITS merits their inclusion in the documentation for Datatypes R2.

The XML ITS needs to describe how these can be represented in instances.

UpdateMode must be specifically declared by committees as part of their artifacts, thus introducing support for it will not cause any backward compatibility issues for existing specifications. In general new specifications that choose to adopt update mode will not be backward compatible because receivers will not be able to safely ignore update modes when parsing instances. On the other hand, adding audit trail information is backward compatible because it can safely be ignored by receivers that were expecting the old version.

Discussion

Grahame: the schema generator already adds these:

• an XML attribute called "updateMode" to attributes with the update mode flag set on them in the design. The enumeration bound to the attribute is restricted to the "allowed update modes" defined by the committee.
• the XML attributes "controlActIdRef" and "validTime" to elements with the audit trail flag set on them in the design.

We need to update the MNM documentation to clearly establish that these flags cannot be set on structural attributes.

--GrahameGrieve 12:12, 10 January 2007 (CST) Lloyd & Grahame suggest that these are added as properties at the same level as nullFlavor in the abstract datatypes spec. Should also note collection issues

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