This is the current version of the PS-CA Implementation Guide. Other releases of the PS-CA Implementation Guide may be found at Guides.

Tooling & Validation

Companion to many interoperability specifications is conformance demonstrations and testing. Conformance can be tested at several points and at several layers; for example, validation of document content or messaging behaviour. Such activities help ensure interoperability between implementations, easing deployment and reducing post-deployment issues.

Canada Health Infoway envisions a range of proof-of-conformance activities to go alongside the PS-CA Specification as part of a larger interoperability program, including:

  • FHIR resource validation
  • IHE Connectathon-style peer-to-peer testing
  • On-line demonstrations

The conformance plan will allow flexibility to accommodate for anticipated jurisdictional tailoring of PS-CA. As of the publication of this implementation guide, the exact nature of these activities is still to be determined.

To complement a Canada Health Infoway conformance plan, implementers are directed to the Conformance and Validating Resources in the FHIR specification.

Validation Tools

Open source, publicly accessible, and commercially available validation applications and websites may be useful to implementors who desire to check their products. Some of these include:

Generally, the application or website is given:

  • a resource or bundle of resources,
  • an implementation guide package (in this case, the PS-CA release package, available on this site)
  • and a profile to validate the resource against.

Using tooling to test and validate against the PS-CA Package

The (HL7 FHIR Validator GUI)[https://validator.fhir.org/] is one of the most straightforward ways of validating example resources to determine if they meet constraints in this guide. The constraints in this guide have been pre-loaded in the form of a package to the registry so that it can be easily selected in the HL7 FHIR Validator interface.

To validate an example:

  1. navigate to https://validator.fhir.org/
  2. click the "options" button on the top left corner of the site header
  3. scroll down to "select an IG" to validate against
  4. select the "ca.infoway.io.psca" IG from the dropdown menu
  5. select the "IG version" that you would like to validate against
  6. click "Add+" to add the IG version to the list of IGuides that the example will be validated against (you can validate against multiple IGs at once)
  7. scroll back up to the "Validate" button in the top left corner of the site header
  8. load the example for validation by either copy/pasting it into the "Enter Resource" window, or upload the example(s) through the "Upload Resources" window
  9. click the "Validate" button on the bottom of the page
  10. the results (errors, warnings, information messages, etc.) of the validation will be displayed at the bottom of the page

Notes:

  1. Unless a validator can be loaded with the PS-CA-referenced terminology or can be directed at a terminology server that supports PS-CA terminology, an otherwise complaint PS-CA resource instance may receive validation warnings & information messages due to terminology not being able to be checked. None of the listed online validators are currently aware of all PS-CA code systems or value sets.

  2. The above list of applications and websites is not exhaustive. Inclusion in the above list is not a recommendation by Infoway. Several of these tools are under active development; features or availability may change without notice.

  3. After confirming the example is conformant to the constraints in the PS-CA, consider adding it as a file to the IPS Sample Registry.

Patient Summary Viewers

To view a rendering of an example patient summary. Rendering example summaries is a recommended final step when performing testing & validation.

Note: These tools are for test data only and should never be used to submit or view PHI.

To view a rendering in the PS-CA Renderer:

  1. navigate to https://ps-ca-renderer.apibox.ca/
  2. copy/paste (or load from a file) the example bundle of patient summary resources in JSON or XML format
  3. click the "View PS-CA" button to render the contents

An IPS viewer tool has also been created for viewing patient summary bundles. Support for optional sections may be more limited, however the IPS viewer also includes examples from other national implementers that readers are encouraged to explore.

To view a rendering in the IPS Viewer:

  1. navigate to https://www.ipsviewer.com/
  2. copy/paste (or load from a file) the example bundle of patient summary resources in JSON or XML format
  3. click the "View IPS" button to render the content