Guidelines and Best Practices

Trifolia-on-FHIR has the functionality to allow users to completely customize resources. By following these guidelines, users can ensure the FHIR publisher successfully processes the Implementation Guide. 

Implementation Guide

An implementation guide (IG) is a set of rules about how FHIR resources are used (or should be used) to solve a particular problem, with associated documentation to support and clarify the usage. Classically, FHIR implementation guides are published on the web after they are generated using the FHIR Implementation Guide Publisher. 

The ImplementationGuide resource is a single resource that defines the logical content of the IG, along with the important entry pages into the publication, so that the logical package that the IG represents, so that the contents are computable. In particular, validators are able to use the ImplementationGuide resource to validate content against the implementation guide as a whole. The significant conformance expectation introduced by the ImplementationGuide resource is the idea of Default Profiles. Implementations may conform to multiple implementation guides at once, but this requires that the implementation guides are compatible.

  • The URL of the Implementation Guide must be in the format of http[s]://xxx.yyy/zzz/aaa/ImplementationGuide/my-ig-id. For example: http://myproject.com/someRoot/ImplementationGuide/myproject-ig
  • The "id" of the implementation guide must align with the URL of the implementation guide. For example: If the URL of your implementation guide is http://myproject.com/someRoot/ImplementationGuide/myproject-ig, the id must be "myproject-ig". Users can select the "Change this resource's ID" button on the "Browse Implementation Guide" screen.
  • The Implementation Guide should have a description. The main screen of the FHIR IG Publisher export displays the description.
  • All contacts in the Implementation Guide appear as authors in the FHIR IG Publisher export.
  • ToF only exports resources referenced directly within the Implementation Guide resource. Confirm the Implementation Guide resource references all resources.

Resources

The FHIR specification defines a set of resources, and an infrastructure for handling resources. In order to use FHIR to create solutions for integration requirements, implementers must map their problems to resources and their content.

  • All resources within an Implementation Guide need URLs in one format. Based on the example above, if your implementation guide's URL is http://myproject.com/someRoot/ImplementationGuide/myproject-ig then all profiles (StructureDefinition resources) within the Implementation Guide must have URLs that start with http://myproject.com/someRoot/StructureDefinition/.

Creating an Implementation Guide in Trifolia on FHIR

  1. Open and log into Trifolia-on-FHIR.
  2. Select File > New Project.
  3. Specify an ID that is unique to your IG (e.g., test-ig).
  4. Specify a URL unique to your IG (e.g., http://test.com/fhir/implementationguide/test-ig). The last leaf/level of the URL should match the ID to prevent errors during publishing.
  5. Specify a name for your IG. This is the computable format of the name, used similarly (but not the same) as the ID.  A natural language name identifying the implementation guide. This name should be usable as an identifier for the module by machine processing applications such as code generation.
  6. Specify a title for your IG. A short, descriptive, user-friendly title for the implementation guide. This is what is displayed to readers of the IG.  
  7. Specify a Package ID. If developing an HL7 IG, you will receive this information pending PSS approval.
  8. Define permissions using the “Permissions” tab.
  9. Save the IG. It is now set as the project you are working on.