HL7 Version 3 Standard: XML Implementation Technology Specification - V3 Structures, Release 2

This document presents an Implementable Technology Specification (ITS) for the encoding rules for HL7 Version 3 messages based on the Extensible Markup Language XML. It represents the method that is recommended by HL7, describing the underlying rules and principles. The corresponding data type descriptions necessary for this specification are described in the ISO-Harmonized Data Types, Release 1 specification.

This document also defines a standard way to use W3C XML Schema and unified modelling language (UML) to describe HL7 V3 compliant XML instances in a way that is human and machine readable.

Main sections:

· Overview

· XML instance documents

· Use of XML namespaces

· Reference package

· Serialisation of HL7 classes to XML

· Reshaping of RIM based models

· Applied models

· Informal extensions

· Backwards and forwards compatibility

· The use of schema processors

· UML and XMI representations of serialisation models