Draft and Experimental Profiles

The NHS Wales FHIR Implementation Guide uses three levels of stability and implementation readiness to guide users. They are as follows:

Active

This content has been reviewed and is considered by the authors to be ready for use in production systems. It has been subjected to assurance and approved as an official standard. However, it may not yet have seen widespread use in production across the full spectrum of environments as is intended. In some cases, there may be documented known issues that require implementation experience to determine appropriate resolutions. Future versions of FHIR may make significant changes to Active Trial Use content that are not compatible with previously published content. For more details on Standards for Trial Use, see the HL7 standard development pattern.

Draft

This portion of the specification is not considered to be complete enough or sufficiently reviewed to be safe for implementation. It may have known issues or still be in the "in development" stage. It is included in the publication as a place-holder, to solicit feedback from the implementation community and/or to give implementers some insight as to functionality likely to be included in future versions of the specification. Content at this level should only be used by users who are experienced in both practical implementation and the logical development principles of is very much "use at your own risk". The content that is Draft that will usually be elevated to Trial Use once review and correction is complete after it has been subjected to engagement and assurance.

Experimental

Experimental status is an additional flag appended to Draft status. This portion of the specification is not complete and is not safe for implementation. Whilst it may not include known issues it is still in a state of experimental development. It is included in the publication as a place-holder, to solicit feedback from the implementation community and/or to give implementers some insight as to functionality likely to be included in future versions of the specification. Content at this level should not be implemented, and elevation to Trial Use is neither guaranteed nor necessarily assumed.