Introduction

This guide defines a Clinical Report for Research (ClinicalReportResearch or CRR) that is inspired by the International Patient Summary (IPS) implementation guide. Even though it attempts to follow it where possible, it is more adapted to the research use case in the Belgian realm. More in particular, it describes a standardized message and method for exchanging a prioritized selection of clinical building blocks (CBB) that constitute essential and clinically relevant healthcare information.

Scope & Usage

The CRR is designed to support the use case scenario ‘reusing primary healthcare information for secondary use’, but it is not limited to it. The CRR provides a prioritized set of CBBs commonly used in Data Collection Definitions (DCDs). DCDs may include the CRR as a core component to quickly and efficiently get most of the required information. Also, the CRR may guide healthcare organizations in implementing the most common CBBs. If a healthcare organization supports these CBBs, it will be able to easily fulfill most DCDs.

Considering the usage of the CRR within a broad range of research projects, each with its own information requirements, the CRR is designed to be permissive, non-exhaustive, specialty-agnostic, and condition-independent. No additional restrictions or specifications are added to the set CBBs. Moreover, it is unlikely that the CRR will be required in its entirety within a DCD. Each DCD is able to build on the CBBs from the CRR by setting additional requirements and/or defining subsets using the inheritance rules set by FHIR.

Audience

The audience for this document includes software developers and implementers with reporting capabilities within their electronic health record (EHR) systems; developers and analysts in sending institutions; and local, regional, and national health information exchange networks who need to exchange the CRR according to this specification.

Business analysts and policy managers can also benefit from a basic understanding of the use of FHIR profiles across multiple implementation use cases.

Disclaimer

The specification herewith documented is a draft working specification, and may not be used for any implementation purposes. This draft is provided without warranty of completeness or consistency, and the official publication supersedes this draft. No liability can be inferred from the use or misuse of this specification, or its consequences.