Question: How do profiles fit into the overall conformance picture
Jun 2, 2016Question:
How are Conformance Resource and Implementation Guide (IG) resources are linked? I understand usage of both but how both will be linked to create Profiling. Not clear about using both of them, what scenario or use case would be that?
Answer:
Well the conformance resource includes server capability or client desire for server capability and also includes what all actual Resources are supported, and links to what profiles are (or should be) supported on the system. So the conformance statement ‘creates’ profiling by making it clear what profiles the system supports.
ImplementationGuide is a primarily a publishing thing - publishing a group of conformance statements and profiles, with their supporting value sets etc, in a single logical group, with a single identifier. The implementation guide may - and commonly does, but not always - include one of more conformance statements as examples, or requirements. So it ‘creates’ profiling by allowing for publication of group of conformance statements and profiles. So it’s primary function is to establish logical groups of profiles.
Most uses of Implementation Guide will be publishing national standards, or project agreements (projects such as argonaut) rather than server level publishing.