Technical+Questions

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**What role do Standards Development Organizations (SDO’s) play in the S&I Framework?**
SDO’s are envisioned to play an important role in the S&I Framework process. They possess the expertise and intellectual property needed to solve complex health interoperability challenges. It is expected that SDO’s will form a core piece of the membership in each Initiative Group.

**How does the S&I Framework deal with SDO Intellectual Property (IP)?**
By contributing to the S&I Framework Initiatives, contributors agree to license their contribution under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License for documentation and other content, and under the Simplified BSD License for software code and to disclose all known Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). It is the preference of the S&I Framework to work with material that is freely distributable with wide usage rights. In some cases, where a Standard Development Organization (SDO) provides source material under restricted licenses (for instance, those that require paid membership to access), the S&I Framework will need to deal with content that is not compatible with the preferred content license framework. In those cases, one of the following must be true:
 * 1) By preference, the SDO is a member of the Initiative and makes the source material available under the S&I Initiative open content license
 * 2) Alternatively, the SDO agrees to provide Initiative Members and S&I Staff access to the source material, agrees that reasonable portions of the source material may be quoted in public discussion, and agrees that the resulting implementation guide or derivative work of the source material may be published under the S&I Initiative open content license.
 * 3) At the consent of the S&I Steering Team, the SDO agrees to an alternative licensing approach which allows the Initiative to appropriately reach its Initiative Goal

**Is this HITSP 2.0?**
This question will commonly come up as new volunteers who previously may have participated in the Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP) volunteer for the new S&I Framework initiatives.

The answer is NO; the S&I Framework is not envisioned to be the “sequel” to HITSP, but a new evolution in standards harmonization. There will be a commitment to reuse HITSP’s work products and processes where they are deemed useful and applicable, but this new level of standards harmonization is intended to have a broader focus than HITSP and is an attempt to build on some of the lessons learned from the HITSP process.

**How much will HITSP’s work be reused?**
A core principle of the S&I Framework will be to focus on reusing and refining existing standards harmonization and development work wherever applicable and possible. The S&I Framework initiatives will review and consider previous work already completed by HITSP and other SDO’s and will strive to reuse this work as we seek to work collaboratively on interoperability challenges.

**What is a Computational Independent Model?**
The Computational Independent Model (CIM), is intended to illustrate exactly what the system is expected to do, by representing it in the environment in which it will operate. However, it does not include details of the system structure. The CIM consists of a vision document, use cases, functional requirements and domain models. A CIM is useful in understanding the problem and also provides a source of shared vocabularies for use in other models. The CIM should be traceable to the subsequent PIM and PSM constructs.

**What is a** **Platform Independent Model (PIM)?**
A Platform Independent Model (PIM) describes the system, but does not include details of the platform. It exhibits a specified degree of platform independence so as to be suitable for use with a number of different platforms of similar type. Moreover, it shows the parts of specifications which do not vary from one platform to another. A PIM consists of an interface diagram, class diagrams, a components diagram demonstrating traceability between the Computational Independent Model (CIM) and PIM, behavior diagrams and business rules. A PIM is transformed into a Platform Specific Model (PSM).

**What is a Platform Specific Model (PSM)?**
A Platform Specific Model (PSM) is a "platform specific" view of the system. It combines the specifications in the PIM with the details that specify how that system uses a particular platform. Therefore, a PSM is produced through the transformation of the PIM into a PSM. It consists of web services, schema, WSDL, and a components diagram showing traceability between the PIM and PSM. It will be an implementation if it provides all the information needed to construct a system into operation (e.g. Java code, SOAP over HTTP, implementation guidance, etc). A PSM may also be used as a PIM that is used for further refinement to a PSM that can be directly implemented (e.g. converting from Java to .NET).

**What is an Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD)?**
An IEPD is a specification for a data exchange and defines a particular data exchange. It is a set of artifacts consisting of normative exchange specifications, examples, metadata, and documentation encapsulated by a catalog that describes each artifact. The entire package is archived as a single compressed file. When uncompressed, the catalog is a hyperlinked index into the IEPD and can be opened in a standard browser. The user may use the catalog to overview the IEPD contents or to open each individual artifact (provided the appropriate software required to open a given artifact is installed).

The S&I Framework will leverage the [|National Information Exchange Model] (NIEM) process and package specifications into a **NIEM Health IEPD**. This will build upon the specifications visions for the NHIN, adhering to applicable governing body decisions and prioritizations to support use cases, business scenarios and implementations. The NIEM Health IEPD will be developed using the model driven architecture (MDA) approach in which each artifacts will be categorized into a Computational Independent Model (CIM), a Platform Independent Model (PIM), and Platform Specific Model (PSM). Each category will be used as an input into another category. Together, the CIM, PIM and PSM will be compiled to generate the NIEM Health IEPD (refer to figure below).

**What role will S&I Framework outputs play in certification activities?**
It is envisioned that S&I Framework specifications would, in the future, be used to inform certification requirements that may be developed in support of Meaningful Use Requirements.

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