Table of Contents

Introduction

The objective of the first pan-Canadian Projectathon is to test and improve the quality of the pan-Canadian Patient Summary Interoperability Specifications (PS-CA Specifications) to ensure they are implementable, testable and meet expectations. The aims of the Projectathon are to identify potential issues in the basic specifications, give implementers a chance to test their implementations in live environments, and strengthen implementation guidelines and standards in the health sector.

Infoway views this as a preliminary event before any conformity assessment, quality label or certification process.

Participants

Vendors and jurisdictions who are planning to implement the PS-CA Specifications are invited to participate in the Projectathon. In addition, any interested party that has Patient Summaries in their future roadmap are welcome to participate.

By participating in the Projectathon, you will:

• Have the opportunity to be an early adopter and an influencer of the final specification;
• Gain a better understanding of the expected integration patterns for your products;
• Identify dependencies and integration challenges;
• Interact with the jurisdictional teams that will ultimately use your products;
• Ensure quality for the benefit of clinicians and patients;
• Accelerate your readiness for implementation;
• Save time and money through a harmonized pan-Canadian approach;
• Get familiar with the validation/testing processes and tools; and
• Help achieve our collective goals of developing a quality national standard.

Additionally, through participation in the Projectathon, participants can prepare for practical applications of the PS-CA Specifications.

Approach

A suite of virtual tools, collectively referred to as Gazelle, will be deployed to support a free, 3-day remote testing event from March 21-23, 2022. Gazelle provides jurisdictions and vendors an opportunity to validate the role they will be playing in an ecosystem and ensure they are able to satisfy the interoperability requirements. Furthermore, Gazelle offers several self-serve, self-test and innovation opportunities for jurisdictions and vendors to test their alignment to the represented integration profiles.

The Projectathon event is organized by Infoway with support from a world leader organization in the space - IHE Catalyst.

Preparation and Requirements

In preparation for the Projectathon, Infoway and IHE Catalyst will:

• Host three training webinars;
• Develop a FHIR document viewer;
• Deploy an OpenAPI browser for both interface specifications (MHD and CA:FeX);
• Work with participants to develop a clinical scenario that will identify the required test data for the Projectathon;
• Offer helpdesk support prior to and during the Projectathon; and
• Publish a report on learnings after the Projectathon.

Participant requirements for participation in the Projectathon include:

Interoperability Specifications

In addition to the PS-CA Interoperability Bundle, you may wish to review this diagram which provides a high-level view of relevant Integration Profiles to support the PS-CA project. This view contains a superset of profiles that offer alternatives to exchanging Patient Summaries, depending on Jurisdictional service type and availability. Mandatory and optional capability support is described in the sequence diagrams associated with each Use Case analysis.

Registration 

Participants are required to register for the Projectathon via the Gazelle test platform. The registration period will be open from January 20 - February 11, 2022. A registration webinar will be held on January 20, 2022 at 11AM ET. This webinar will include an overview of the:

• Scope of the Projectathon, including profiles and use cases 
• Gazelle tool
• Registration in Gazelle
• How the Projectathon will be organized
• Relevant documentation, including specifications and training materials

Pre-Projectathon Preparations

For successful participation in the Projectathon, pre-Projectathon tests and connectivity tests are important. 

The purpose of the Pre-Projectathon tests are to help vendors: 

• Test their IHE profile implementation in their system using the virtual systems in Gazelle (simulators) to find and fix issues;

• Improve the quality of their tests prior to the Projectathon; and

• Help familiarize themselves with the Gazelle tool prior to the Projectathon, including how to access and use Gazelle simulators to perform the tests.

The Pre-Projectathon Test period will be open from February 14 - March 11, 2022. A Pre-Projectathon Test webinar will be held on February 14, 2022. During this webinar, participants will be shown how to access and use Gazelle in order to perform the tests. The profiles that will be tested during the Projectathon are: 

In addition to the pre-Projectathon tests, there will be a Connectivity Testing period between February 25 - March 11, 2022. The purpose of the Connectivity Testing period is to check, in advance, whether participants' systems are configured and ready to communicate with other vendor systems during the Projectathon event. A Connectivity Testing webinar will be held on February 25, 2022. 

Tools

The pan-Canadian Interoperability Gazelle Platform is available at https://pancanadianIO.ca. From the home page, you may access the documentation for various support tools, test tools, and utilities, by clicking on the respective PDF icon.

Information Sheet

Below is a short information sheet to support your registration for the Projectathon: 

• How to create your account

Get Support

Projectathon Schedule

Important Dates and Events

Projectathon Calendar