CDA R3 Relax narrative body requirement

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Submitted by: Brett Marquard	Revision date: May 4, 2010
Submitted date: Fall, 2009	Change request ID: <<Change Request ID>>

Issue

CDA R2 requires the narrative body on all clinical documents.

Recommendation

Relax requirement for narrative body on all clinical documents.

Requiring a transform or other tool to generate narrative is also acceptable.

Rationale

The National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) Healthcare Associated Infection (HAI) parser is accepting CDA without requiring the narrative body.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Qualty (AHRQ) Common Formats is planning to use CDA without requiring the narrative body.

Resolution

June 1, 2010 SDWG call: Narrative block remains a core requirement to satisfy the human readability definition of CDA. abstain: 0; opposed: 0; in favor: 9.