Requirements-Concept Domains

Concept Domains are named categories of concepts maintained by HL7. They are referenced by static models in circumstances where binding to a specific set of codes is not possible. Binding to codes might not be possible for a variety of reasons:

• The category of concepts is too broad to assign a set of codes to
• It is not possible to gain consensus on the set of codes
• The set of codes may need to vary based on different contexts

MIF: mif-vocabulary-model.xsd/ConceptDomain

Requirement	Concept domains must have a name
Rationale	By definition, concept domains are "named categories", so a name is pretty essential . . . The name is what's used to reference the concept domains from models that need to constrain the set of allowed concepts.
MIF	mif-vocabulary-model.xsd/ConceptDomain/@name
OMG	A concept domain can be represented as a class, which can have a name.

Requirement	Concept domains may have a number of different types of annotations
Rationale	See rationales for individual annotations types
Implementation	Definition Usage Constraint Usage Notes Rationale Requirements Design Comments Stability Remarks Other Annotation Open Issue Ballot Comment Change Request Deprecation Information

Requirement	Concept domains must have a formal definition
Rationale	The purpose of a concept domain is to provide a label to a category of concepts. A definition is essential to identify the category of concepts the concept domain represents.
MIF	mif-vocabulary-model.xsd/ConceptDomain/annotations/documentation/definition
OMG	Presuming this definition is textual, it can be attached as a UML Comment.

Requirement	Concept domains must indicate whether they are bindable or not
Rationale	Some concept domains are too generic for it to be appropriate to establish bindings for them of any sort. They are useful in high-level abstract models that are not intended to be implemented directly. For example "ActCode" which covers the concepts that describes types of acts for all possible acts (encounters, observations, procedures, billing, consent, etc.) cannot reasonably be bound to a value set. Instead it is a placeholder for refinement. Specializations of the ActCode domain, such as ActProcedureCode might reasonably be bound. An indicator provides information about how a concept domain is expected to be used. It also acts a mechanism to prevent bindings from being created where they should not.
MIF	mif-vocabulary-model.xsd/ConceptDomain/@isBindable
OMG	A tagged value of a ConceptDomain stereotype.

Requirement	Concept domains must be constrainable
Rationale	HL7 methodology is dependent on the idea of constraint (see Constraint Derivation). A broad concept domain such as "All act types" in the RIM needs to be constrainable to narrower concept domains such as "All procedure codes" or even "All dental procedure codes" when creating models based on the RIM.
Methodology	A concept domain can specialize other concept domains.
MIF	mif-vocabulary-model.xsd/ConceptDomain/@specializesDomain mif-vocabulary-model.xsd/ConceptDomain/@specializedByDomain
OMG	UML generalization between concept domain classes.

Requirement	A concept domain needs to identify sample codes to give an idea of what types of codes might be bound to it.
Rationale	Eventually, the concept domain needs to be bound. In addition, sample instances need to be constructed to document models and it helps to know some example concepts even if there aren't any specific codes bound. To ensure that we can validate that examples are present, it helps to have example concepts expressed explicitly rather than embedded as part of the definition.
Methodology	Concept domains are required to have one of the following: A binding to a value set in a universal binding realm A binding to a value set in a representative binding realm A binding to a value set in an example binding realm Print names for at least three example codes
MIF	mif-vocabulary-model.xsd/ConceptDomain/@exampleConcept
OMG	Either a tagged value that points to example concepts or stereotyped dependencies that do so.

Requirement	Concept domains sometimes need to be able to reference other terminology objects
Rationale	When defining the concept sub-domains for ActCode, RoleCode, etc., we want to be able to identify the classCode that serves as the anchor for those concept domains.
Methodology	Concept domains have properties (name-value pairs)
MIF	mif-vocabulary-model.xsd/ConceptDomain/@property
OMG	UML attributes on the concept domain class.

Requirement	Concept domains need to be able to track statuses over time.
Rationale	Like other vocabulary objects, Concept domains can be draft, active, deprecated or even retired. In some cases, they even get resurrected. Users need to know what the status of a concept domain is right now as well as what it was at times in the past.
MIF	mif-vocabulary-model.xsd/ConceptDomain/statusInfo
OMG	This seems to be primarily a model management or tooling issue, though the information could also be provided using tagged values.