Consolidated CDA (C-CDA), published by Health Level Seven. This guide is not an authorized publication; it is the continuous build for version 3.0.0 built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) CI Build. This version is based on the current content of https://github.com/HL7/CDA-ccda/ and changes regularly. See the Directory of published versions

Validation

What happened to the Schematron?

With the change to using the FHIR StructureDefinition, schematrons are not being produced for new versions of the C-CDA specification. The CDA schema is still appropriate for validating the structure of the C-CDA document. Instead of using schematron for testing the constraints, C-CDA documents should be validated using the FHIR validator.

Validate C-CDA Documents Using FHIR Tooling

The FHIR validator can be used to validate C-CDA documents. There are three ways of using the FHIR validator.

Web version of the FHIR Validator

There is a web version of the FHIR validator available at validator.fhir.org. Simply select “US CCDA Document” from the “Common Validation Options”, paste in your document, and validate.

Run FHIR validator locally

There is a Java version of the FHIR validator that can be run locally. Information is available on how to do this at Using the FHIR Validator. An example command line for running it is:

java -jar validator_cli.jar -ig hl7.cda.us.ccda#current -profile http://hl7.org/cda/us/ccda/StructureDefinition/specific-document-template document-file-name

Incorporate the FHIR validator into your code

There is a Confluence page that addresses how to incorporate the FHIR validator into your code.

Validation Note

Schema, together with template specific rules, called schematron, have been the historical method that C-CDA documents were validated for conformance to the specifications. With this StructureDefinition publication of CDA and C-CDA, validation rules are inherent in the StructureDefinitions. However, headed into the ballot the accuracy of this method has not been fully tested. In addition, how this inherent new method can be deployed in industry is not yet known. By publication of this Implementation Guide post ballot, we anticipate testing will have occurred and plans to assist the industry will be in place. For more discussion, please see Validation