Update 6th January 2022
The ballot is now closed and the comments have been collated. Many thanks to all that have contributed. Over 500 comments were received - these will be invaluable in making a UK Core that works well for everyone.
But of course there is still much more to do in this ballot round. All comments need to be reviewed and acted on. Once some administrative work is done, open review meetings will shortly be announced - giving 15 days notice (by email on the HL7 UK members list).
The unprocessed collated comments and votes are in this sheet: HL7 UK Ballot Comment Submission Sheet (UK Core 0.1.0) - Consolidated 2022-01-04.xlsx
Pre Ballot Information
This ballot opens on Monday 22nd of November 2021, and is open for one month, closing at 23:59 on Wednesday 22nd December.
What is an HL7 UK Ballot?
A ballot is a formal opportunity to comment on a draft HL7 Standard. Feedback received is used to improve the standard, as agreed by a consensus group, and if enough positive feedback is obtained the draft, can progress towards being part of a final published standard. This typically takes several ballots over the course of time.
This is an STU Ballot (Standard for Trial Use). It is not expected that a first ballot such as this one will lead to a completed "Normative" unchanging standard in one ballot cycle. The material is seeking to be approved as a standard for implementation. Once approved, and when sufficient implementation experience has been gathered and feedback incorporated, the material can be re-balloted as Normative (no further breaking changes). Other STU ballots may happen before this, as changes and additions are made, on the way to being Normative.
The official rules of HL7 UK Ballots are documented here
Participation
All HL7 UK members are encouraged to engage in this important process by voting and commenting. We also welcome comments from non-members, but although all comments will be considered, these are not binding on the process. (To join HL7 UK see https://www.hl7.org.uk/register/join-here-contact-form/)
The material for review is here: https://simplifier.net/guide/hl7fhirukcorer4release1/home
It includes a descriptive scope on the first page, but at a very high level it is a set of FHIR Profiles, intended to help implementers use FHIR in the UK.
The material is based on FHIR® Release 4 (see http://hl7.org/fhir/) and a working knowledge of FHIR will be needed for it to be understandable.
For some details of what FHIR profiles are in general see http://hl7.org/fhir/profiling.html.
Commenting and Voting
Comments and their votes are to be recorded on this spreadsheet: HL7 UK Ballot Comment Submission Sheet (UK Core 0.1.0).xlsx (use right-click, Save Link As), and then e-mailed to tcchair at hl7.org.uk.
To be considered, comments must be received before midnight on the last day of the ballot. You can withdraw comments, if you wish to.
Each comment must be given an individual vote type (Affirmative or Negative, and some subtypes). The whole set of comments must also have an overall vote.
The overall vote options are Affirmative, Negative and Abstain. Any negative comment must lead to an Negative overall vote.
Non-members will not need to complete the vote parts.
See the Instructions tab of the comments spreadsheet for more details.
Aims
The aim of this ballot is for the UK FHIR community to provide feedback on this material. Any and all comments are welcome, from both HL7 UK members and non-members.
Comments will be formally reviewed after the end of the ballot period (during early 2022). Affirmative comments can also be questions about the specifics of the material.
More general questions can be asked informally directly to the HL7 UK Technical Chair by email.
The UK members email discussion list is also available for general discussion and questions.
We look forward to your participation. Thanks to all of those involved in getting this ready.
Rik Smithies
HL7 UK Technical Chair, on behalf of the Management Board of HL7 UK