Make custodian mandatory vs. required CDA R3

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Submitted by: Rick Geimer	Revision date: October 15, 2009
Submitted date: October 15, 2009	Change request ID: <<Change Request ID>>

Issue

In CDA R2, custodian is required, but can have a nullFlavor. However, I believe the V2 medical records message was changed a while back to make custodian mandatory (cannot be null). If this is correct, then I believe CDA R3 should make the same change for consistency purposes to ensure that every CDA R3 document can also participate in a V2 medical records exchange.

Recommendation

• Make custodian mandatory (i.e. disallow nullFlavor)

Rationale

• Compliance with the v2 medical records message (unless I am mistaken about the mandatory constraint there)

Resolution

March 09, 2010: Agree that custodian can never be NULL. Unclear how to technically represent this, but at very least can note this in the CDA R3 specification as a narrative constraint. abstain: 0; opposed: 0; in favor: 8.