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Introduction
Overview
The Digital Health Drug Repository (DHDR) is a provincial source of personal health information, specifically, drug and pharmacy service information. It improves the quality of care received by people living in Ontario by making comprehensive dispensed drug and pharmacy service information available for access by health care providers.
The DHDR is being expanded to include personal health information from community pharmacies and hospitals in addition to information currently contributed from the Ministry of Health.
COVID-19 vaccination information from COVaxON is made available via the DHDR and not retained in the DHDR. COVaxON is the ministry's provincial solution for COVID-19 vaccination information and includes information on all COVID-19 vaccinations administered throughout the province.
This FHIR implementation guide supports:
Contribution to the DHDR of dispensed drug and pharmacy services records from community Pharmacy Management Systems
Contribution to the DHDR of administered drug records from Hospital Information Systems
Retrieval of DHDR records by health care provider applications via the ONE Access gateway. These records may include those from Pharmacy Management Systems, Hospital information Systems, the Ministry of Health’s Health Network System and the Ministry of Health’s COVaxON
Digital Health Information Exchange (DHIEX)
On January 1, 2021, Ontario Regulation 329/04 ("O. Reg. 329/04") under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA), was amended to provide a regulatory framework for Ontario Health, as directed by the Minister of Health (“the minister”), to establish, maintain and amend interoperability specifications. This regulatory framework, as set out in sections 26 to 34 of O. Reg. 329/04, is referred to by Ontario Health as the Digital Health Information Exchange (DHIEX) framework.
Ontario Health guides and supports the adoption of modern interoperability specifications applicable to digital health assets as defined in s. 26 of O. Reg. 329/04. A health information custodian (HIC) 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 the requirements of the DHIEX framework does not relieve a HIC of its obligation to comply with the other provisions of PHIPA and its regulations.
Ontario Health is required to consult with and consider the recommendations of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (where a specification relates to the confidentiality of personal health information, the privacy of individuals or the rights of individuals to access or correct records of their personal health information) prior to providing the specification to the Minister of Health for review and approval.
Ontario Health is also required to consult with any health care provider organizations, individuals, stakeholders and other parties as appropriate, in order to inform its decisions concerning the establishment, maintenance or amendment of interoperability specifications.
Content and Organization
The implementation guide is organized into the following sections:
- Home includes general background information about the Digital Health Drug Repository, Ontario Health's Digital Health Information Exchange (DHIEX) program, and this implementation guide.
- Business Context includes pages that provide an overview of the business model, that this implementation guide supports business data, use cases and business rules.
- 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 DHDR 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 terminology updates subsection.
- Downloads allows download all technical artifacts within this implementation guide.
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. There is no membership requirement for individuals and organizations which merely install or use software with built-in HL7 interfaces.
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This material includes SNOMED Clinical Terms® (SNOMED CT®) (https://www.snomed.org/use-snomed-ct/) which is used by permission SNOMED International. All rights reserved. SNOMED CT®, was originally created by The College of American Pathologists.
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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) | APPROVED DATE |
|---|---|
| Ontario DHISC | 2024-01-24 |