Issues for Patient Identification Service (PIDS) RTF3 Mailing List

List of issues (green=resolved, yellow=pending Board vote, red=unresolved)

List options: All ; Open Issues only; or Closed Issues only

Issue 1245: Value Sets for Coded data elements in the PID segment
Issue 1416: Update Appendix 8
Issue 1417: Update PIDS spec to use Notification Service event type language
Issue 2093: The spec is not clear enough on How to Handle Links
Issue 2670: The supported_traits operation returns trait names but not types
Issue 2671: "Relationship to PMF"
Issue 2672: Explicit "Link and Unlink Operations needed?
Issue 2737: Typos in formal/99-03-05
Issue 2738: semantics of aliases in context of correlation manager
Issue 2739:
Issue 2741:
Issue 2742:
Issue 2745:
Issue 2746:
Issue 2747:
Issue 2748:
Issue 2749:
Issue 2752:
Issue 2835: need find_candidates operation on CorrelationMgr
Issue 2836: need to be able to get description of matching algorithm
Issue 2870: Issue:: CorrelationMgr Interface (typo)
Issue 2871: IDL error (typo)
Issue 2872: Need another type for this trait in PersonIdTraits module
Issue 2937: CASE troubles
Issue 2938: how to report database-or-infrastructure-level erros as exceptions
Issue 2965: Question or issue regarding collaboration diagrams
Issue 3017: should we reference the recent HL7 SIGMPI harmonization with PIDS
Issue 3019: using XML for traits and metadata
Issue 3067: Relationship to PMF
Issue 5537: The IDL for SpecifiedTraits seems incorrect

Issue 1245: Value Sets for Coded data elements in the PID segment (pids-rtf2)

Summary:  PIDS specification has recommended the HL7 PID segment for standard trait names. The data type for many of the traits in the PID segment (like race, martial status etc.) are CE (Coded). An important aspect of achieving interoperatibility is to make a tight connection between coded fields and the coded vocabulary items that are possible values of the field. For example, the field "Sex" might have the allowable set of values: male, female and ambagious. To achieve that goal HL7 has defined  value sets for the various coded fields. In most cases the values sets are from existing standard vocabulary  like LOINC, UMLS etc. I was wondering  - it will be nice if PIDS specifications also recommended the values sets for the coded fields in the PID segment to be the same as recommended by the HL7 standards.
 
 

 received issue

Summary: The "8. Appendix - Use Cases" in the PIDS spec do not accurately reflect
 how PIDS is to be used.  This should be updated.
 

 received issue

Summary: The "10. Appendix - Event Descriptions" in the PIDS spec were done
 before the Notification Service was adopted.  The Notification Service
 uses a different mechanism to specify event types.  The PIDS spec should
 be updated to use the Notification Service event type language.
 

Summary: The spec is not clear enough  on How to Handle Links
 
 Based on clear feedback in HL7 forums, I know  there is serious concern
 over the fact that our Interfaces and info model  show explicit support
 for merges (merges deactivate one dupe and leave  another intact) but
 only implicit support for links (links leave multiple  intact;  In
 effect, they simply assert or "record"  dupes).
 
 I find the last paragraph of  2.7 confusing:  If PIDS implementations are
 to be able to "carry  administrative and auditing attributes such as
 timestamp, user stamp, source  system, and specific operation types",
 then it raises thevalid question:  how does the implementation know when
 a link operation has occurred?  We  do not tell them anywhere in the spec
 as it stands.  
 

Summary: Issue: "Client needs trait-type awareness so it can type-validate
 interactive trait entries"
 
 The supported_traits operation returns trait names but not types, leaving
 the client unable to proactively validate trait entry.  While the current
 spec provides for the server
 to throw InvalidTraitFormat on a bad date,  It would be better to allow
 the client to know a priori that the Birth Date is a date so that it can,
 for example put up a visual date picker or otherwise validate the date
 before the
 user has tabbed on to other fields.
 

Summary: Issue: "Relationship to PMF"
 What is the complete and useful normative relationship of PIDS to the Party
 Mangement Facility (PMF)?  On my first reading of it, I believe the PMF spec
 has already addressed part of it by relating their QualifiedID to the PIDS
 QualifiedPersonID (both are an identifier value qualified by its Domain Id).
 I would add that the Property Lists by which the PMF records attribution of
 a party can be mapped to PIDS traits, although I wonder if we could be even
 more specific like "Trait Names that match property names (if they are
 Namespace-qualified) are understood to correspond.  If this is agreed, then
 we have a formalized linkage of not only the IDs but the Traits, and the
 basis for integration between the two without coupling..
 

Summary: Issue: Does the spec need explicit "Link and Unlink Operations, or just
 guidance on how to assert the
 DuplicateIDs and ExternalIDs traits?
 

Summary: ISSUE Typos:  Document formal/99-03-05 still has a number of typos that 
 were to be fixed in the first RTF.
 This includes PHONE_NUMER_HOME instead of PHONE_NUMBER_HOME in the 
 HL7Version2_3.idl and
 #pragma prefix "org/omg" on pages 2-13 and 2-44.
 

Summary: I think the spec needs some narrative on the semantics of aliases.
 Specifically, it fails to point out that the receipt of an alias from a
 source domian does not necessarily imply that its value is to be used as an
 alias in the correlating domain.
 
 This clarification is important because if a VIP (say, the president) is
 anonymous under an alias in a source domain it might be entirely appropriate
 to treat that alais as a real name in the correlating domain.  Similarly,
 the correlating domain should be free to maintain its own alias for persons
 independent of source domains.
 

Summary: We need a version of find_candiate that returns candidates (each with
 qualified id and profile) from multiple domains - not just the correlating
 domain.
 

Summary: In order for a client to rightly interpret the results of a search using
 find_candidates or find_or_register_ids, it would be very helpful to have an
 operation to get a description of the matching algorithm employed
 

Summary: The text of the spec for CorrelationMgr has find_or_register_ids() in it 
 but it isn"t in the IDL (section 2.6.7) on page 2-41, although it is in the 
 overall IDL. at the end of the document.
 

Summary: There is an extra "};" in the PersonIdService.idl file just before the
 added find_or_register_ids method in the CorrelationMgr interface

Summary: I have one request for the revision task force. There is
  a trait in the PersonIdTraits module - PIDS/ExternalIds and its type is
  QualifiedPersonIdSeq. We need another type for this trait - which will
  correspond to the HL7 type for the patient"s Identifiers, e.g. it should
  have the domain, identifier and the type of identifier. A system can
  support multiple alternate patient identifiers - so in order to fully
  qualify what kind of externalId is being used, its type ( HL7 suggested
  table of Identifiers types can be used) needs to be defined.
 

Since with CORBA 2.3, everything is to be case insensitive there are some 
problems
with the PersonIdService.idl.   The statement defining: "Trait trait" in 
TraitSelector now is illegal. This requires
a minor change in the IDL to make the instance of Trait to be different.

Is there an exception, or a "correct way"  to let the client know that an
underlying infrastructure error (like an RDBMS error) has occurred?

> I think that this example on page 3-127 is wrong or terribly misleading.  
>           [x < 0] 4: invert (x, color)    -- conditional Message
> 
> If I read right, condition-clause is supposed to follow the sequence number. 
> So the correct example would be: 
>           4 [x < 0] : invert (x, color)    -- conditional Message. 
> 
> To me, this is a guarded message
>           [x < 0] 4: invert (x, color)    -- guarded Message

We in SIGMPI have recently made some good strides in harmonizing HL7 and
PIDS by adding some missing events and updating the identifier management
language (id domains, profiles, traits).  We are even applying event names
that approximate the PIDS operation names where applicable in the new
events:

get person demographics
find candidates
get corresponding identifiers
allocate identifiers (Tim notes you can do that with a register_new_ids
supplying an empty profile, although personally I am disgusted by such a
practice because it commonly leads to dupes, and is only valid for
intentionally-to-be-reused IDs which is also philosophically questionable)

Since this representation of trait values in XML is fully-compliant at the
IDL level, it's not a functionality change.
The expression of trait metadata (so as to document the STRUCTURE of it) is
a functionality change but it is defensible as a fix, even to make to make
it possible for PIDS clients to validate dates - not just textual format but
the value domains at the basic and abstract datatypes.

I think we can all agree at this point that we need an operation on
IdentificationComponent called

        get_trait_metatdata

and I feel strongly that it should use DTD notation.  If we agree at this
level (please everyone - do you agree so far?), then I think the next
question is how to express basic and abstract types in the DTD.

Is there, or can there be made, a formal relationship between PMF properties
and PIDS traits?
Partial Proposed Resolution:
The PMF uses CosPropertyService interfaces for property manipulation. These
properties are not explicitly namespace-qualified.

typedef string PropertyName;
struct Property {
PropertyName property_name;
any property_value;
};

The IDL for SpecifiedTraits seems incorrect. There is not definition for elements of this union for ALL_TRAITS and NO_TRAITS so these values can not be used.