The IDL contained in the PIDS specification is not CORBA compliant.

Specifically, the declarations

struct TaggedProfile

;

and

struct TraitSelector

;

fail to comply with the rule that the semantics of OMG IDL forbids identifiers in the same scope to differ only in case.

The PIDS IDL will compile under the OrbixWeb ORB, but it fails to compile under ORBacus unless the --case-sensitive option (which is not CORBA compliant) is used.

see below

closed

The issue author enumerates several points of confusion with

regard to the applicability of QoS properties to specific objects

within a channel. The issues are as follows:

1) Setting Priority or Timeout on a ConsumerAdmin or ProxySupplier

is meaningless, and should be disallowed

2) StartTimeSupport and StopTimeSupported on a ProxyConsumer or

SupplierAdmin is meaningless, and should be disallowed

3) OrderPolicy (like DiscardPolicy) on a ProxyConsumer or

SupplierAdmin is meaningless, and should be disallowed

4) MaximumBatchSize and PacingInterval are meaningless for Any

and Structured Event style Proxies

The issue author goes onto suggest that Table 2-4 should add

specific columns for each style of Proxy, so that the applicability

of QoS properties to specific objects can be designated with finer

granularity.

fixed, see below

he "RequiredTraits" exception returns a sequence of traits. But
make_ids_permenant takes an ARRAY
of input ids. So this exception if thrown won't provide any usefull
information as to which id
had the problem.

Our implementation, rather than throwing the exception, just creates the ID
in a temporary state. However, as we recently considered supporting the
exception in conjunction with a probabilistic matching algorithm, we found
the following ambiguity:

The RequiredTraits exception inlcudes a list of required traits, but the
spec doesn't clarify that this is the complete list of required traits -
assuming that its the same set for any input profile - so that the client
can figure out which IDs need for traits.

The problem with that semantic is as follows. Some probabilisitc matching
algorithms can only determine the adequacy of the incoming trait set by
inspecting the VALUES of the trait types supplied. for example, if the
incoming request tries to register two ids, one with first=John ,
Last=Smith, and the second with First=Mergetroid Last=Pepperdyne, a
probabilisitc algorithm will likely accept the second but reject the first;
YET BOTH supplied the same traits. Hwo could the client figure out what's
missing? How the server even figure out what's missing? Neither can. ONLY
THE ALGORITHM KNOWS....... AND IT ONLY KNOWS ONCE IT HAS SEEN THE INPUTS.

Therefore we need to define clearly what the exception semantics are, and in
a way that doesn't preclude the use of probabilistic matchers that cannot
assess adequacy in a "one trait list fits all" manner.

One possible solution is to have the exception return a SEQUENCE OF
offending ids - so the client can know which are offensive. Instead of also
including for each the set of traits needed, the return structure could show
the confidence deficit for each.

see below

Summary: 2) Change PIDS interfaces a) Add a "find_or_register" operation to the CorrelationMgr interface that accepts a QualifiedTaggedProfileSeq instead of a TaggedProfileSeq like the IdMgr find_or_register operation. This would make the requirement for the QualifiedPersonId explicit. b) Add a new operation to the IdMgr interface called "add_external_ids". This would allow an explicit agreement and the part of the client and non-correlating service to track uncorrelated identifiers. A PIDS service could return NotImplemented if it doesn"t track external ids. A correlating PIDS service could also return NotImplemented if it doesn" t track non-correlated ids. I have attached the revised IDL for the IdMgr and CorrelationMgr interfaces. We like these changes because they make the requirement for the QualifiedPersonId explicit as well as removing the ambiguity associated with the ExternalIds trait. We appreciate all the thought that has gone into the PIDS specification and understand that our needs might be met in a more creative way that does not require any changes to the PIDS specification. We would appreciate any feedback you have.

Update spec as below.

Summary: The PersonIdService module has an include statement that is no longer
valid - "Notifications.idl".

resolved, close issue

Summary: There are a number of mostly minor typos in the final PIDS document I
obtained from the OMG web server.

I"ve annotated the corbamed/98-02-29.pdf file and placed it in
http://www.acl.lanl.gov/~dwf/PIDS/98-02-29.pdf. The changes are in
notes attached to the PDF document.

The most serious are two problems with the IDL. In the NamingAuthority
module: #pragma prefix "omg.org " should have the space removed after
org. In the HL7Version2_3 module, PHONE_NUMER_HOME should be replaced by
PHONE_NUMBER_HOME.

The others are mostly spelling corrections and name changes to match the
style guide used in the actual IDL.

resolved

Summary: The description of the InvalidId exception implies that PIDS servers
that only know about a subset of the IDs in an ID Domain would throw the
InvalidId exception when a client passes an unknown ID to a call. Many
of the operation calls take a sequence of IDs and the spec implies the
exception is thrown if any one of the passed in IDs are not known. This
is an over burden for a client to either know ahead of time which IDs
the server knows about or handle an exception to remove the violating
IDs and try again. In relation to the definition of the InvalidId
exception:

Please remove para 1 sentence 3.

PLease replace para 2 sentence 3 with "An Unkown ID passed into a call
only causes an exception to be raised if the operation signature only
takes one ID."

resplved

Summary: The PersonIdService module still contains the following:

readonly attribute Notification::EventComponent
event_component;

The Notification module was removed fro the adopted spec so this
attribute must also be removed.

closed

Summary: 1) Change description of ExternalIds trait to read "This read-only trait indicates the set of other IDs a person may have. The IDs listed may be from a different ID Domain than the ID Domain of the ID this trait is bound to. This is more general purpose than CorrelatedIds. The IDs listed in this trait may be set by other mechanisms than automatic correlation. For example, external ids are added to non-correlating domains using the IDMgr::add_external_ids operation. Correlating PIDS should return correlated ids. They should also return any non-correlated external ids if they are tracking non-correlated ids. Note that the client will not be able to tell the difference between correlated ids and non-correlated ids. Not all PIDS implementations will support this trait and the tracking of non-correlated ids." In the conformance section: "Tracking non-correlated external ids - If a PIDS service tracks non-correlated ids it must support the IdMgr::add_external_ids operation and the PIDS/ExternalIds trait."

resolved is 1836, close issue

Summary: 3. The "get_corresponding_ids" method of the IdMgr interface is intended to return a list of a person"s Ids that are associated with a given list of domains. A person can have different Id types associated with a given domain, such as the external patient Id, internal account number, external account number and patient internal number. How does the client software determine which Id is which?

issue closed, no action

Summary: 3. The "load_profiles" method of the CorrelationMgr interface should be revised to use exceptions that are consistent with the IdMgr interface.

Update spec as described below.

Summary: 2. The "merge_ids" method of the IdMgr interface should provide an exception that allows the server to notify the client when two valid enterprise Ids cannot be merged.

Add new exception as described below.

Summary: 2. The "update_and_clear_traits" method of the Identity interface should include the MultipleTraits exception as the "update_and_clear_traits" method in the ProfileAccess interface does.

no action taken, close issue

Summary: 3. Methods that update person traits or merge Enterprise Ids should allow for a way to determine the originating domain. For example, the "update_and_clear_traits" method of the ProfileAccess Interface does not have a parameter for the originating domain of the update.

no action taken, close issue

Summary: 3. In the "update_and_clear_traits"method of the ProfileAccess interface, the list of traits to clear and modify must be checked for invalid entries. The UknownTraits exception allows for only one list of trait names to be returned. This makes it impossible for the client to determine which list an invalid trait is in.

close issue

Summary: 3. HNE does not have a list of required person traits for a person addition. It requires that a certain number of primary, secondary, and/or tertiary person traits are defined. It tries to match the trait definitions to a "Use Case" and will not add a person unless the list of defined traits synchs up with at least one of the "Use Cases".

No Data Available

Summary: 3. The processing for the "register_ids", "register_new_ids" and "register_these_ids" is very similar. The implementation software will have to verify that each Id is not already in the system and return an enterprise Id for each person.

Update the spec as below.

Summary: A method is needed in the ProfileAccess and IdentifyPerson interfaces to indicate the maximum sequence size to be returned by the server. The method would allow clients to determine the appropriate size in advance, avoiding a server exception.

resolved, close issue

Summary: 2. An exception that indicates that the server is unavailable is needed. It would allow a client to inform a user of the reason that a person search cannot be completed. It is needed for several methods.

close issue, see above

Summary: 3. There is no exception to indicate if a person addition or update is unsuccessful. For example, if the IdMgr->register_new_ids method is called to add persons into HNE, there is no way to inform a client that the addition was unsuccessful.

no action taken, closed issue

Is there, or can there be made, a formal relationship between PMF properties
and PIDS traits?
Partial Proposed Resolution:
The PMF uses CosPropertyService interfaces for property manipulation. These
properties are not explicitly namespace-qualified.

typedef string PropertyName;
struct Property

;

Summary: 2. The "Not Implemented" exception is needed for the following interfaces and methods because HNE cannot support the functionality:

a) IdMgr->create_temporary_ids()
b) IdMgr->deactivate_ids()
c) IdMgr->make_ids_permanent()
d) IdMgr->unmerge_ids()

No Data Available

Summary: The first paragraph on identifyperson should state that it returns IDs given selection criteria traits.

Drop - unless further explanation can be provided.

The IDL for SpecifiedTraits seems incorrect. There is not definition for elements of this union for ALL_TRAITS and NO_TRAITS so these values can not be used.

Summary: In reviewing the documentation and IDL for the SequentialAccess Interface, I came to understand that there would be problems with its implementation.

The problems are:
a. Access Method
b. Performance
c. Memory Management

No Data Available

We in SIGMPI have recently made some good strides in harmonizing HL7 and
PIDS by adding some missing events and updating the identifier management
language (id domains, profiles, traits). We are even applying event names
that approximate the PIDS operation names where applicable in the new
events:

get person demographics
find candidates
get corresponding identifiers
allocate identifiers (Tim notes you can do that with a register_new_ids
supplying an empty profile, although personally I am disgusted by such a
practice because it commonly leads to dupes, and is only valid for
intentionally-to-be-reused IDs which is also philosophically questionable)

> I think that this example on page 3-127 is wrong or terribly misleading.
> [x < 0] 4: invert (x, color) – conditional Message
>
> If I read right, condition-clause is supposed to follow the sequence number.
> So the correct example would be:
> 4 [x < 0] : invert (x, color) – conditional Message.
>
> To me, this is a guarded message
> [x < 0] 4: invert (x, color) – guarded Message

Since this representation of trait values in XML is fully-compliant at the
IDL level, it's not a functionality change.
The expression of trait metadata (so as to document the STRUCTURE of it) is
a functionality change but it is defensible as a fix, even to make to make
it possible for PIDS clients to validate dates - not just textual format but
the value domains at the basic and abstract datatypes.

I think we can all agree at this point that we need an operation on
IdentificationComponent called

get_trait_metatdata

and I feel strongly that it should use DTD notation. If we agree at this
level (please everyone - do you agree so far?), then I think the next
question is how to express basic and abstract types in the DTD.

Is there an exception, or a "correct way" to let the client know that an
underlying infrastructure error (like an RDBMS error) has occurred?

Since with CORBA 2.3, everything is to be case insensitive there are some
problems
with the PersonIdService.idl. The statement defining: "Trait trait" in
TraitSelector now is illegal. This requires
a minor change in the IDL to make the instance of Trait to be different.

Summary: I have one request for the revision task force. There is
a trait in the PersonIdTraits module - PIDS/ExternalIds and its type is
QualifiedPersonIdSeq. We need another type for this trait - which will
correspond to the HL7 type for the patient"s Identifiers, e.g. it should
have the domain, identifier and the type of identifier. A system can
support multiple alternate patient identifiers - so in order to fully
qualify what kind of externalId is being used, its type ( HL7 suggested
table of Identifiers types can be used) needs to be defined.

Summary: There is an extra "};" in the PersonIdService.idl file just before the
added find_or_register_ids method in the CorrelationMgr interface

Summary: The text of the spec for CorrelationMgr has find_or_register_ids() in it
but it isn"t in the IDL (section 2.6.7) on page 2-41, although it is in the
overall IDL. at the end of the document.

Summary: In order for a client to rightly interpret the results of a search using
find_candidates or find_or_register_ids, it would be very helpful to have an
operation to get a description of the matching algorithm employed

Summary: We need a version of find_candiate that returns candidates (each with
qualified id and profile) from multiple domains - not just the correlating
domain.

Summary: ISSUE Typos: Document formal/99-03-05 still has a number of typos that
were to be fixed in the first RTF.
This includes PHONE_NUMER_HOME instead of PHONE_NUMBER_HOME in the
HL7Version2_3.idl and
#pragma prefix "org/omg" on pages 2-13 and 2-44.

Summary: I think the spec needs some narrative on the semantics of aliases.
Specifically, it fails to point out that the receipt of an alias from a
source domian does not necessarily imply that its value is to be used as an
alias in the correlating domain.

This clarification is important because if a VIP (say, the president) is
anonymous under an alias in a source domain it might be entirely appropriate
to treat that alais as a real name in the correlating domain. Similarly,
the correlating domain should be free to maintain its own alias for persons
independent of source domains.

Summary: Issue: "Relationship to PMF"
What is the complete and useful normative relationship of PIDS to the Party
Mangement Facility (PMF)? On my first reading of it, I believe the PMF spec
has already addressed part of it by relating their QualifiedID to the PIDS
QualifiedPersonID (both are an identifier value qualified by its Domain Id).
I would add that the Property Lists by which the PMF records attribution of
a party can be mapped to PIDS traits, although I wonder if we could be even
more specific like "Trait Names that match property names (if they are
Namespace-qualified) are understood to correspond. If this is agreed, then
we have a formalized linkage of not only the IDs but the Traits, and the
basis for integration between the two without coupling..

Summary: Issue: "Client needs trait-type awareness so it can type-validate
interactive trait entries"

The supported_traits operation returns trait names but not types, leaving
the client unable to proactively validate trait entry. While the current
spec provides for the server
to throw InvalidTraitFormat on a bad date, It would be better to allow
the client to know a priori that the Birth Date is a date so that it can,
for example put up a visual date picker or otherwise validate the date
before the
user has tabbed on to other fields.

Summary: Issue: Does the spec need explicit "Link and Unlink Operations, or just
guidance on how to assert the
DuplicateIDs and ExternalIDs traits?

Summary: The spec is not clear enough on How to Handle Links

Based on clear feedback in HL7 forums, I know there is serious concern
over the fact that our Interfaces and info model show explicit support
for merges (merges deactivate one dupe and leave another intact) but
only implicit support for links (links leave multiple intact; In
effect, they simply assert or "record" dupes).

I find the last paragraph of 2.7 confusing: If PIDS implementations are
to be able to "carry administrative and auditing attributes such as
timestamp, user stamp, source system, and specific operation types",
then it raises thevalid question: how does the implementation know when
a link operation has occurred? We do not tell them anywhere in the spec
as it stands.

Summary: The "10. Appendix - Event Descriptions" in the PIDS spec were done
before the Notification Service was adopted. The Notification Service
uses a different mechanism to specify event types. The PIDS spec should
be updated to use the Notification Service event type language.

Summary: The "8. Appendix - Use Cases" in the PIDS spec do not accurately reflect
how PIDS is to be used. This should be updated.

Summary: PIDS specification has recommended the HL7 PID segment for standard trait names. The data type for many of the traits in the PID segment (like race, martial status etc.) are CE (Coded). An important aspect of achieving interoperatibility is to make a tight connection between coded fields and the coded vocabulary items that are possible values of the field. For example, the field "Sex" might have the allowable set of values: male, female and ambagious. To achieve that goal HL7 has defined value sets for the various coded fields. In most cases the values sets are from existing standard vocabulary like LOINC, UMLS etc. I was wondering - it will be nice if PIDS specifications also recommended the values sets for the coded fields in the PID segment to be the same as recommended by the HL7 standards.