This site supports the IHE effort in Document Sharing as part of the IT Infrastructure Domain with testing, tools, and technical expertise. The NIST XDS Toolkit and the NIST HL7® FHIR® Toolkit (Asbestos) were originally created by Bill Majurski.

Introduction

This server is operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in support of Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing (XDS) and related profiles published by Integrating the Healthcare Environment (IHE). This family of profiles is now referred to as Document Sharing.

The test tools are based on the IHE IT Infrastructure Technical Framework.

All testing done against the test tools is considered conformance testing: testing against a reference. The primary goal of IHE is interoperability testing where implementations are tested against other implementations. Conformance testing always precedes interoperability testing. Interoperability testing in IHE takes place at IHE Connectathons.

Public Registry Server

The Public Registry Server has been removed from this site and is no longer supported. XDS Toolkit replaces it.

XDS Toolkit Download

XDS Toolkit is the tool platform where we host Document Sharing related tools. It is available as a download. Most of our users download Toolkit and run it on their own machine so they can use it to test within their own development environment without messing with firewalls.

XDS Toolkit Multi-User Mode

XDS Toolkit as of version 6 supports a multi-user mode where submitted content is private to the user. This multi-user mode is centered on the concept of a Test Session. All test logs from the Conformance Tool, simulators, and simulator logs belong to a Test Session. When users download Toolkit and use it locally, they are mostly using the *default* Test Session in single-user mode. The Internet copy of Toolkit is configured in multi-user mode which operates a little differently.

In multi-user mode the *default* Test Session simulators are still available but you need the admin password to alter their configuration. Single-user mode has always worked this way. In multi-user mode you can create a new private Test Session using the *Create New* button at the top of the screen. This builds a new, private Test Session and displays its ID which is a 6-character hex number. This ID is private to the user. After creating a Test Session, you should save this value. To re-enter the Test Session later you will have to enter this ID at the top of the window. Test Sessions do not have a password. The secret ID is both the identifier and the protection since it is difficult to guess. You can create as many Test Sessions as you need. But, Test Sessions with no activity for 30 days will be deleted. The Responding Gateway/Registry/Repository that replaces the Public Registry has a different retention policy (not deleted) but occasionally its contents will be cleared.

Public Discussion

Discussion of this tool is done on the XDS Implementers mailing list. Membership can be requested via here.

Open source

XDS Toolkit is an open-source project maintained on GitHub.

Testing Scope

See here for the list of profiles supported.

NIST FHIR® Toolkit (Asbestos)

Asbestos supports testing of the HL7® FHIR® enabled supplement to the XDS.b profile.

It is a general-purpose FHIR® enabled testing tool which can help test different types of implementation guides through the channel concept.

Contacts

XDS Implementers mailing list
[email protected]

Sunil K. Bhaskarla
sunil DOT bhaskarla At nist DOT gov