International Patient Summary Implementation Guide, published by HL7 International / Patient Care. This guide is not an authorized publication; it is the continuous build for version 2.0.0 built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) CI Build. This version is based on the current content of https://github.com/HL7/fhir-ips/ and changes regularly. See the Directory of published versions

Must Support and Obligations

Must Support and Obligations

In the context of IPS, Obligations defines how an Actor (Producer (IPS) or Consumer (IPS)) must “support” a given element. All Must Support elements in this publication are accompanied by an explicit obligation, which identifies structured expectations for a given actor. Obligations can be found in the formal view section of a resource as shown below for the IPS Procedure profile:

Figure 5: Example of Obligations in IPS Procedure Profile

Obligations may be different between the Producer (IPS) and Consumer (IPS) of an IPS document and also may differ by profile and resource attributes. For all obligations, no data should be populated or processed in any way that conflicts with regional laws, regulations or policies. For additional context, see the Security and Privacy Considerations section of this implementation guide.

Because IPS is a standard which may be localized to different jurisdictions and regions, one goal of obligations is that they may be inherited. Realm-specific implementation guides may apply additional obligations and/or provide additional guidance on the definition of Must Support. However, they SHOULD identify and document these differences. For more information on obligations, see the extension description and to see all possible types of obligations it may be helpful to review the associated obligations valueset