Document Sharing Conformance Test Tools (XDS)

The XDS Toolkit supports the Integrating the Health Enterprise (IHE) effort in Document Sharing as part of the IT Infrastructure Domain. The test tools are based on the IHE IT Infrastructure Technical Framework.

All testing done against these 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.

NIST offers the tooling and source code as public domain resources.  The XDS Toolkit and related FHIR Asbestos Toolkit were initially created as NIST-led resources based on NIST’s particular expertise and neutrality in this area.  These are now community efforts and outside interested parties are encouraged to download the source-code and use it, modify it as needed for their particular use-cases and contribute any changes back if the greater community would benefit.

The full website for the XDS Toolkit is available here.