P522 Replace IS Datatype

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P522 Replace IS Datatype

Sponsoring Person

Joann Larson

Description

Replace IS Data Type with CWE.

Justification

In the US Realm the HITSP initiative is pushing for greater interoperability capabilities among healthcare organizations. This seems like a good idea universally. It is critical that very precise information is transmitted in v2 messages regarding the coding system actually employed in sending locally defined codes. Also, many organizations have need to transmit more than 1 local coding system when communicating with business partners. To that end, we are requesting that all fields currently associated with the IS data type be converted to CWE to allow the transmission of additional codes and version number.

A related proposal regarding position based semantics is also relevant to this proposal.

Proposed Solution

Make global change to convert all fields currently associated with the IS data type to CWE.

Add statement as follows: “Receivers are required to inspect the Coding System component of the CWE data type to accurately interpret the meaning of the code. Senders transmitting messages to Receivers on earlier version of the standard may elect to negotiate business rules to ensure that expected data is not lost. HL7 does not assign positional meaning to user-defined codes.