Interaction

Interaction

HL7 Definition

See Drug Interaction for another meaning of the word Interaction. See Interaction (new dynamic model) for detail of Interactions in the context of the new dynamic model.

A unique association between a specific Composite Message Type, a particular Trigger Event that initiates or "triggers" the transfer, and the responsibilities the receiver must execute upon receipt of the information. It is a unique, one-way transfer of information.

A single Interaction explicitly answers the questions:

• How a system knows when to send a particular type of message;
• What the particular message type is;
• What the receiving system should do when receiving the message.

As the list above indicates, each Interactions is defined as a triplet involving the following elements:

• Trigger Event - each interaction will be associated with a single trigger event. The trigger event represents the “real-world” occurrence that creates a need to exchange information. Note that a given trigger event may fire multiple interactions.

Note that the semantic context of an interaction has to be defined by a domain.

• Composite Message Type – The set of static model definitions (wrappers and message types) that define the structures of the data that is transmitted by the interaction.
• Receiver Responsibilities - will be defined for the target receiver of the message. The receiver responsibilities will be cast as a list of options, where-in each option consists of returning an application acknowledgement interaction back to the sender of the originating interaction and/or firing a trigger event. In some cases a receiver responsibility option may be to do nothing. It is possible that the responsibility option interaction will itself have receiver responsibilities, resulting in a prolonged conversation between sender and receiver.

See Interactions section of the v3Guide for a high level description of interactions.

SAIF-CD Definition

• An atomic piece of information that is transmitted in one direction from an object to another.
  • One ormore interactions must exist together in the context of an operation for there to be business value as part of the information exchange.
  • A single interaction that is part of a larger operation provides no business value in isolation,for example, a query without a response
  • REF: SAIF-CD:Figure 10: BF language concepts and relationships for describing operation semantics
  • REF: SAIF-CD:Figure 28 : Shared Purpose