Compliant SAIF Implementation Guides

Compliant SAIF Implementation Guides In order to quantitatively evaluate when a given SAIF Implementation Guide (SAIF IG) is a valid instance of the SAIF Canonical Definition (SAIF CD), the SAIF CD is required to provide a set of Compliance Criteria against which the SAIF IG may be evaluated. Following is a table containing those Compliance Criteria sorted by their relative focus with respect to the content of the SAIF CD. A few notes are helpful in understanding the content of the table:

1. The term “Compliance Criteria” is used rather than “Conformance Criteria” to be consistent with the SAIF CD definition of Compliance as meaning “the correctness with which a target specification is derived from a source specification.” In addition – again as defined in the SAIF CD – the term “conformance” is restricted to use in evaluating the veracity of a specific implementation of a given specification. A SAIF IG is, in fact, a specification rather than an implementation.
2. The SAIF CD Compliance Criteria are written in the form of statements wit the ISO/IEC directive, as outlined in the HL7 V3 Publishing Facilitators Guide, section 5.1.5 which states:

“HL7 adheres to ISO/IEC directive, Appendix G, as delineated in the following table:”

Stringent Use of SHALL, SHOULD and Other Modal Verbs
To Convey the Sense of:	Use the Following:
Required/Mandatory	SHALL	SHALL NOT
Best Practice/Recommendation	SHOULD	SHOULD NOT
Acceptable/Permitted	MAY	NEED NOT

1. In the context of the development of a SAIF IG, the terms “SHALL” and “SHALL NOT” should be considered to be minimum SAIF IG requirements (and equally critical pertinent negatives), i.e. if a given SAIF IG does not fulfill every one of the Compliance Criteria listed in the table, that IG cannot be certified as a SAIF-CD-compliant SAIF IG.
2. In the context of the development of a SAIF IG, the terms “SHOULD” and “SHOULD NOT” should be interpreted as meaning “Considered Best Practice” or “Considered to go against/be in direct violation of Best Practice.”
3. The HL7 Architecture Board recognizes that the effort involved for an organization to define, develop, deploy, and manage an organization functioning under a SAIF IG can be considerable and, as such, is very often likely to be approached in an iterative, incremental fashion. As such, the notion of Best Practice should be viewed as end-point goals that may be approached over several iterative releases of a given SAIF IG once it has fulfilled the minimal requirements stated in the SHALL Compliance Criteria.

Evolution of the SAIF CD The HL7 Architecture Board (ArB) recognizes that the process of developing multiple organization-specific SAIF IGs may very well uncover errors of commission – or, more likely, omission – in the SAIF CD. In addition, the ArB recognizes that the SAIF CD may evolve, particularly in the first months of organizational implementations. The ArB is committed to maintaining an open, responsive, and timely dialogue with all consumers of the SAIF CD. As, such, the ArB encourages all organizations who encounter difficulties with the SAIF CD relative to requirements for development of an organization-specific SAIF IG to contact the ArB immediately so that questions may be addressed and, if necessary, edits may be made in the SAIF CD so that it can also evolve in an iterative and incremental manner.