Existing Wording: See Mappings for W3C PROV (http://www.w3.org/ns/prov) : The provenance resource is based on known practices in the HL7 implementation space, particularly those found in the v2 EVN segment, the v3 ControlAct Wrapper, the CDA header, and HE ATNA (RFC 3881). The conceptual model underlying the design is the W3C provenance Specification. Though the content and format of the resource is designed to meet specific requirements for FHIR, all the parts of the resource are formally mapped to the PROV-O specification, and FHIR resources can be transformed to their W3C PROV equivalent.

WRT Entity:

*Provenance.entity.role - Definition: How the entity was used during the activity.

Control 1..1 Binding ProvenanceEntityRole: Required: http://hl7.org/fhir/provenance-entity-role (How an entity was used in an activity)

Binding Provenance.entity.type: Required: See http://hl7.org/fhir/vs/resource-types (The type of an entity used in an activity) value Set = derivation, revision, quotation, source.

WRT to Activity:

• Provenance - Definition: Provenance of a resource is a record that describes entities and processes involved in producing and delivering or otherwise influencing that resource. [...]Alternate Names History; Event; Activity /provenance-definitions.html#Provenance.target

*"The provenance resource tracks information about activity that created a version of a resource, including the entities, and agents involved in producing a resource." [6.5.1]

*Provenance.Target is defined as "The Reference(s) that were generated or updated by the activity described in this resource. A provenance can point to more than one target if multiple resources were created/updated by the same activity." /provenance-definitions.html#Provenance.target

*Provenance.agent is defined as "An agent takes a role in an activity such that the agent can be assigned some degree of responsibility for the activity taking place. An agent can be a person, an organization, software, or other entities that may be ascribed responsibility."

Comment:

The claims that the FHIR Provenance Resource is "based on the W3C Provenance specification" with mappings seems to be an overstatement. [See /provenance-mappings.html]

RE: Entity.role - The FHIR Provenance.entity.role, which is defined as "How the entity was used during the activity" is incorrectly mapped to W3C PROV state changes Derivation and Revision, which are defined as "connections between entities" [http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/NOTE-prov-primer-20130430/#derivation-and-revision-1] rather than to W3C PROV Entity Roles, which are defined as "role is the function of an entity or agent with respect to an activity, in the context of a usage, generation, invalidation, association, start, and end." [http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/REC-prov-dm-20130430/#term-attribute-role and http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-o/#Role|http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-o/#Role%5D]

RE: Provenance Resource/Activity - The FHIR Provenance Resource [aka Activity] does not properly or completely map to W3C PROV Activity. While the FHIR Provenance Resource documentation indicates that there is some named activity or process being conveyed, there is none. From the perspective of W3C model, which is included in the FHIR Provenance Resource Background and Context [6.5.3], W3C is a "3 legged stool" but the FHIR Provenance Resource is missing the Activity leg.

The Provenance Resource is mapped to the Control Act class in HL7 v.3, which is defined as "An act representing a system action such as the change of state of another act or the initiation of a query. All control acts represent trigger events in the HL7 context. ControlActs may occur in different moods" and to "Activity" in W3C PROV, where it is defined as "An activity is something that occurs over a period of time and acts upon or with entities; it may include consuming, processing, transforming, modifying, relocating, using, or generating entities."[http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/NOTE-prov-xml-20130430/] Difficulty is that FHIR Provenance does not include an element comparable to the ControlActEvent Act.code by which to specify the actual activity that brought the target Resource to its current state, such as the trigger events for create and replace used in v.3 Document Management Topic. Instead, the FHIR Provenance Resource defaults out-of-band of the resource to always being a "generates": "The Provenance resource actually corresponds to a single activity that identifies a set of resources (target) generated by the activity." [6.5.3 Background]. However, generation of a Resource used in this manner to mean "any activity" that led to its genesis, is far too generic to be useful as provenance. Recommend adding an Activity element to capture the workflow (e.g., as in HL7 trigger event, Act.Status, DocumentCompletion or EHR Lifecycle events, and de-couple it from the "acts/events" captured by the AuditEvent, which in are only system reflections of the activity of agents on healthcare information objects.

The DSTU states that "The Provenance resource is tailored to fit the FHIR use-cases for provenance more directly". That use case should be more clearly articulated so that the current version makes more sense. Recommendation is to either model the FHIR Provenance Resource directly out of W3C, use W3C PROV xml rather than a FHIR Provenance, or clearly model the FHIR Provenance Resource as the FHIR version of a ControlAct used to convey the trigger event leading to the interaction or the trigger events that impact a Resource in its lifecycle, which may be conveyed in an interaction. The FHIR Provenance Resource seems to be trying to do all three rather unsuccessfully.