Digital Health Information Exchange (DHIEX)

On January 1, 2021, an amendment to Ontario Regulation 329/04 (“O. Reg. 329/04” or the “regulation”) came into force to establish the DHIEX framework for interoperability specifications, as set out in sections 26 to 34 of the regulation. As a cornerstone of the Ministry of Health’s Digital First for Health Strategy, the DHIEX framework is intended to guide and support adoption of modern interoperability specifications for seamless access to integrated records of personal health information. In accordance with the regulation, Ontario Health is required to, subject to the review and approval of the Minister, establish, maintain and amend interoperability specifications for digital health assets selected, developed or used by health information custodians.

In accordance with O. Reg. 329/04, a health information custodian is required to ensure that every digital health asset that it selects, develops or uses complies with every applicable interoperability specification, as it may be amended from time to time, within the time period set out in the specification. Compliance with this requirement does not relieve a health information custodian of its obligation to comply with the other provisions of PHIPA and its regulations.

[Insert Project Name] Background

[Add project background information here]

Content and Organization

The implementation guide is organized into the following sections:

• Home includes general background information about the [insert project name] and this implementation guide.
• Business Context includes pages that provide an overview of the business model, business data, use cases and business rules that this implementation guide supports
• Implementation Guidance includes pages that provide high level guidance to implementers related to the responsibility of participating systems, conformance rules, and connectivity summary.
• Profiles & Operations provides details on the FHIR profiles included in the scope of this guide, including profile-specific implementation guidance and message definitions. This section also details the operations implemented by the [insert project name] Solution.
• Capability Statement provides a description of the expected response codes as well as links to download the Capability Statement that defines the behaviour of systems associated with this guide.
• Terminology provides a full list of terminology artifacts used in this implementation guide with a revision history
• Downloads allows download of this and other specifications as well as other useful tools

Alignment with the International Standards & Other Pan-Canadian Specifications

[If applicable, insert the alignment of the project in scope with international standards and other Pan-Canadian Specifications. Also include notable variances with the standard in tabular form. The below text in yellow is provided as a SAMPLE ONLY.]

Copyright Notice

This specification is fully copyright protected by the owner. The owner has the exclusive right to make copies of this specification. No alterations, deletions or substitutions may be made without the prior written consent of the owner. No part of it may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, email or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the owner.

This specification contains information for which copyright is held by Health Level Seven Inc. Implementors of the standards (those developing software or otherwise making use of the specification) are required to be members of either Health Level Seven Inc., HL7 Canada or one of the other HL7 affiliates. There is no such membership requirement for individuals and organizations which merely install or use software with built-in HL7 interfaces.

HL7® and FHIR® are registered trademarks of Health Level Seven, Inc. (https://www.hl7.org).

LOINC® is a registered trademark of the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. (http://regenstrief.org)

This material includes SNOMED Clinical Terms® (SNOMED CT®) (https://www.snomed.org/snomed-ct/) which is used by permission SNOMED International. All rights reserved. SNOMED CT®, was originally created by The College of American Pathologists.

“SNOMED” and “SNOMED CT” are registered trademarks of SNOMED International (https://www.snomed.org/).

Legal Disclaimer

Pursuant to O. Reg. 329/04, Ontario Health is required to, subject to the review and approval of the Minister, establish, maintain and amend interoperability specifications. The Minister may direct Ontario Health to establish or amend interoperability specifications, and Ontario Health is required to comply with such direction. In accordance with O. Reg. 329/04, Ontario Health makes the interoperability specification most recently approved by the Minister available to the public by posting it on Ontario Health’s website or by such other means as Ontario Health considers advisable.

As the Minister may direct Ontario Health to amend the interoperability specifications from time-to-time, Ontario Health advises the public and any other users of information concerning interoperability specifications to regularly review Ontario Health’s website where the interoperability specifications are posted, or such other means Ontario Health considers advisable, in order to confirm that they are accessing the interoperability specifications most recently approved by the Minister.

You understand and agree that: (i) This specification is provided “AS IS” without any warranties or representations of any kind, express or implied, in fact or in law; (ii) Ontario Health is not responsible for your use or reliance on the information in this specification or any costs associated with such use or reliance; and (iii) Ontario Health has no liability to any party for that party’s access, use or reliance on this specification or any of the information contained in it.

Document Control

The electronic version of this specification is recognized as the only valid version.

Approval History

APPROVER(S)	APPROVAL STATUS	APPROVED DATE
Ontario DHISC	Balloted Draft	YYYY-MM-DD