The requirements definition contains a consolidation of interoperability and solution requirements to support the pan-Canadian Patient Summary - Interoperability Specifications v1 Trial Implementation. The requirements include:

  • interoperability requirements which can be tested/validated through prototyping; and 
  • a broad set of requirements for consideration and to support and provide guidance to stakeholders in their PS-CA implementations. For example, supporting requirements may refer to local/jurisdictional policies and/or standards indicating that an implementer should validate specific requirement needs, if any, within a jurisdiction.

The requirements refer to a standardized expression of actors, entities, and user-system interactions, which will be further defined within the pan-Canadian Patient Summary - Companion Guide to Reference Architecture. Definitions of the terms used throughout the requirements may be found in the PS-CA Specification: Glossary of Terms & Acronyms.

Additional requirements may emerge and will be included in subsequent releases of the PS-CA specifications. 

Requirements Structure

The Requirements have been defined within three categories (Business/Legal, Information Semantic, and Technical) and two subcategories (Interoperability and Solution), with three priority types (Shall, Should, and May), as described below:

Requirements Categories
Business/Legal Requirements
  • Requirements that enable independent organizations to execute a collaborative process or service.

Information Semantic Requirements

  • Requirements for syntax and semantics such that data exchanged between health record systems can be interpreted and the meaning of the data ascertained.

Technical Requirements

  • Requirements for one health record system to send data to another health record system and for the receiving system to acknowledge receipt of the data payload.
Requirements Subcategories

Interoperability Requirements

  • Requirements for one IT system to send data to another IT system and for the receiving system to acknowledge receipt of the data payload;
  • Requirements for syntax and semantics such that data exchanged between IT systems can be interpreted and the meaning of the data ascertained;
  • Requirements that enable independent organizations to execute a collaborative process or service.

Solution Requirements

  • This is a broad list of requirements that can be used by jurisdictions to conceptualize how existing systems and COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) solutions may be used to create/produce, communicate, share and access/consumer patient summaries based on the PS-CA standard.
  • Requirements may support the development of solutions and go beyond the Interoperability Requirements.
  • Further definitions of these requirements may be defined by jurisdictional policies.
Requirements Priorities
Shall
  • used to indicate a required requirement.
Should
  • used to indicate that a requirement is recommended and should be considered as best practice for implementation, but not required (i.e., it is optional) for implementation. 
May
  • used to indicate that a requirement is permittable / optional, but not required for implementation.
Shall not
  • used to indicate that an element or action is prohibited. 

Requirements Identification

Each requirement is identified with a:

  • Requirement ID: The first 3 characters of the requirement ID (e.g., BR#) represents the category assignment,  followed by "-##" representing the requirement number within the category. For example:

    • BR1-001 = First requirement within the Business/Legal Requirements category
    • BR2-001 = First requirement within the Information/Semantic Requirements category
    • BR3-001 = First requirement within the Technical Requirement category
  • Definition
  • Requirement Subcategory: Interoperability or Solution
  • Type (i.e., Priority): Mandatory, Recommended or Optional