MnM Minutes CC 20080222

M&M Conference Call, February 22, 2008

Attendees

Lloyd McKenzie (chair), Woody Beeler, Dale Nelson, Lee Coller, Craig Parker (scribe), Mead Walker, Gregg Seppala, Abdul Malik Shakir

Agenda

• Ballot Reconciliation for challenges to vocabulary constraints that are yet to be adopted at Harmonization. (Grieve to forward a Hot Topic thread on this question)

Ballot Reconciliation for challenges to vocabulary constraints that are yet to be adopted at Harmonization

In an email from Grahame Grieve, on behalf of the ArB, sent to MnM, the following questions were posed. The responses, drafted during this call, are listed after each question.

What is the expected relationship between harmonization and ballot?

Every binding that is in a balloted artifact is subject to negative comment. In order to resolve, a committee may need to take back a harmonization change proposal. Note that harmonization must be extremely careful of modifying existing definitions, in order that they not “break” previous designs that used the concept as defined.

What harmonised content is not subject to ballot in a membership ballot?

All content that is referenced in a balloted artifact is subject to comment in that ballot. As a consequence, all universally bound constraints in the RIM are subject to review in RIM ballots.

How should committees respond to Negative line items on vocabulary definitions that are subject to harmonisation?

If the committee has an alternate response, fine, otherwise bring proposal to harmonization to resolve

Under what conditions do they advise committees to go to ballot prior to harmonisation?

Technical committees are strongly advised to go through harmonization before material is offered for membership (or DSTU) ballot. However, they may go to vote prior to completing harmonization, but must provide a preamble (preface) statement of what conent is not yet approved, and provide proposed definitions. If the harmonization results differ from the proposal, the rules around substantive change and technical correction apply (rename, code change is technical correction, defintion is substantive, if its meaning differs). Regardless of the presence of negative votes, the content cannot be deemed to have passed its ballot until all such content proposals have completed harmonization.

Note: This reflects past practice. Should the TSC desire, this might be changed from “strongly advise” to a mandate, but in that circumstance, an “exception approval” should be provided to allow urgent specification to go forward using the provisos above.

What arrangements prevent a committee from avoiding ballot on substantiative issues and using harmonisation instead?

This should not be possible, under the above.

Motion(Craig/AMS) Accept the above responses as policy to be reflected in the new HL7 core ballot artifact.

• (5:0:1) Motion passes.