The Extended Architecture is a Reference Architecture for communicating part or whole of an electronic healthcare record (EHCR). The subject of the record to be communicated is an individual person, and the communication is solely with respect to that person’s care. Other uses of healthcare records for purposes such as administration, management, research and epidemiology, which require aggregations of individual people’s records, are not directly within the scope of this Prestandard.
The Extended Architecture is Part 1 of a four part Prestandard. Together with Part 2, the Domain Term List, and Part 3, the Distribution Rules, it enables open, safe and secure communication of part or whole of an EHCR. Part 4, the EHCR message, is one example of an enabled communicative act, which exchanges EHCR information in a linear format.