Emphasizing Content and Providing Recommended Display Guidance

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Submitted by: Victor Brodsky	Revision date: 11/19/2009
Submitted date: 11/19/2009	Change request ID:

Issue

With documents being viewed on smaller and smaller screens (an iphone today, a cellphone watch tomorrow?) important information within the report must be emphasized to the recipient instead of forcing the user to zoom around the report.

Recommendation

Add DisplayGuide="Emphasize" as a possible attribute of the content tag.

Rationale

Important clinical information may be missed if the CDA document instance data is presented to the user by the recipient software that is unaware of the "most important part" of the report. Stylesheets or other methods for controlling the display of the data may not be adequate if the intent of the sender is to make sure some text is:

1. unobstructed = display entire content of element on the screen without the need to scroll the text box (unless this is impossible due to restriction above due to the size of the screen
2. verbatim = do not replace by a a "flag" or other symbols - display as is
3. required = the element must be shown to recepient before the document is closed

For now, simply labeling some content as "Emphasized" can leave it to the recipient software do decide how to do that.

Resolution

June 08 SDWG: Emphasis is already an allowable styleCode. No action needed. We support the requirement.