Vocabulary and RIM Harmonization Process

Background and Objectives

When HL7 first considered developing a single Reference Information Model (RIM) for use in all of the HL7 technical committees (as they were then known), it adopted a process of "RIM Harmonization" to assure that:

• There was a formal process for review and adoption of change proposals
• The process would include representation from all interested groups within HL7
  • (and from external Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) that wished to collaborate)
• The representatives would reach consensus before approving a proposal
• An updated, documented, "approved" RIM would be available at each HL7 Working Group Meeting to allow progress on the RIM-based standards being developed in HL7

The first Harmonization Meeting was held July 8 & 9, 1997 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Since then there has been at least one "interim" Harmonization Meeting between each pair of Working Group Meetings. By 1999, when Vocabulary content became part of the core definition of the RIM classes, the scope was extended to include Vocabulary, and this dual responsibility has remained ever since.

Approval Process

As with all formal processes, a formal declaration of the Harmonization Meeting and their purpose is issued with at least 30-days advance notice. The specific scheduled date of these meetings is determined well in advance of the meeting and no later than the end of the Working Group Meeting prior to the Harmonization Meeting. In general, the harmonization schedule is published as part of the Publishing Calendar posted on the HL7 web site.

When the Meeting is formally announced, the details are listed and the proposal posting service is enabled on the Harmonization Event page on the HL7 web site.

Submission Process and Schedule

Change proposals for the HL7 RIM and Vocabulary content must be documented with the submission template provided on the Harmonization page. The template and its package:

• indicates the purpose of each field
• shows which fields are required
• provides a check list for submissions, and
• provides an example.

Proposals are submitted through the Harmonization page. When posted, they are given a unique name, they are added to the posted list of proposals, and a notice of posting is sent to the HL7 Harmonization List Server. Interested parties should subscribe to the Harmonization list.

Initial Proposal Deadline

The deadline for initial proposal submission is set for 11:59 PM (Eastern time) on the Sunday four weeks before the scheduled Harmonization Meeting. The e-mails to the Harmonization list constitute the "Agenda Notice" for substantive items to be considered at the meetings.

Rules:

• Proposals must be received from a Work Group that has "standing" in the forthcoming meeting (see Representation discussion below)
• Initial proposals not received by this date will not be scheduled for review in the Harmonization Meeting
• In order to be acceptable (see Technical Review below), the proposal must be sufficiently complete and correct that it could be implemented from the information in the proposal, once approved.
• If endorsement of the proposing Work Group is not yet final, such endorsement must be completed before the #Final Content Deadline and the endorsement must not change the proposal in such a way as to alter the scope and intent, as expressed in the initial proposal, except by reducing its scope.

Prior Page Content and History

This Page was initiated by Russ Hamm May 17, 2010

I moved two prior Harmonization-related sub-items (that had been listed under MnM on the "Main page") here, because as this page is completed, this is where those links belong. GWBeeler

• Harmonization Wiki Template

  This template came into being in 2006, but has never been formally used as a harmonization source path. I (GWBeeler) suggest this be dropped for the following reason(s):

  • The current proposal management process is highly dependent upon being able to extract 'specific data fields from the Word document, and the Wiki template has no facilities that lend themselves to reliable automated parsing.
  • We should focus current improvements on the updating of the Word "template"

• Vocabulary Harmonization Tool

  The Vocabulary Maintenance Language remains a main-stay of vocabulary harmonization processing, but the specific tool linked from here has no active users, and therefore, I (GWBeeler) suggest this link be dropped.