Validation

This version of the PS-CA Implementation Guide has been superseded by a newer version. Other releases of the PS-CA Implementation Guide may be found on a table on the Home Page of this Project.

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 along side the PS-CA Specification as part of the larger Virtual Care program, including:

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

The conformance plan will allow flexibility to accomodate 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, implementors 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 this site)
  • and a profile to validate the resource against.

Note: 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 composition may fail validation due to terminology. None of the listed online validators are currently aware of all PS-CA code systems or value sets.