Clinicians on FHIR workshop

This set of pages is in support of a number of workshops about FHIR that are targeted specifically at Clinicians and Business Analysts. The intention is that we will build a ‘standard guide’ for a 1 – 2 day workshop that can be given by people familiar with FHIR, and with a clinical expert to help drive model development.

The overall programme of the workshop is:

  1. Describe the clinical problem. The example we will use in this set of pages is a Discharge Summary Document. From this we select a single ‘item’ or ‘artifact’ of information to model. In the case of the Discharge Summary then it is the document itself, but for more complex problems there may be a number of different possibilities.
  2. Next we build an ‘Information Model’  that represents the information in the artifact that we want to share. Although this uses the FHIR infrastructure (the dataTypes and modelling tools), the model is not constrained to any of the standard FHIR resource types. Other than how to use the modelling tool (which is the clinFHIR Logical Modeller), no FHIR knowledge is required – indeed the purpose is to allow a clinician to document the information requirements in a semi structured fashion so that the correct FHIR artifacts can be created.
  3. The next stage is to take the information model, and produce a ‘Resources model’ and a ‘References Graph’. The purpose of this step is to identify the ‘real’ FHIR resources that will be required (if more than one) plus the constraints and any extra elements (which will be extensions) that are required.  There are actually 2 parts for this stage, each using a different component of clinFHIR.
    • Using the Logical modeler, create a model where the main nodes represent a FHIR resource, with child nodes for extensions or details/constraints on existing elements. Ultimately, the intention is to be able to map this back to the information model so we have traceability to ensure that all the elements from the information model (representing clinician requirements) are represented in a FHIR resource / profile. FHIR knowledge is required for this step.
    • Using the Scenario Builder, construct a diagram of the resources and their relationships. This provides a more visual representation of the resources and their interrelationships. It also allows for sample data to be entered, which is helpful as a ‘cross check’ that all required data elements have been identified, and the datatypes are correct. Only minimum FHIR knowledge is needed – this is almost a clinical QA step against the resource model.
  4. Finally, all the required FHIR artifacts can be identified and built. This definitely requires FHIR knowledge. The artifacts are packaged into an ‘Implementation Guide’ and consist of:
    • Profiles on resources (extensions and constraints)
    • ValueSets and CodeSystem resources
    • Examples
    • Documentation
    • Plus a number of other potential resources.

In practice, any real profile development won’t be as linear as this, and there will doubtless be multiple iterations but this approach should allow all those involved in the development to understand all the steps, and the artifacts that are produced.

Here are the links to the specific pages:

Building the information model

Building the resource model

Building the scenario

Add structured data to a resource

Create a Document from a scenario

Building the ValueSets & Extension Definitions

Building the profiles

Building the Implementation Guide

 

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