#### Distribution Envelope
Domain Message Specification

### About

Overview: Distribution Envelope Specification

The Distribution Envelope provides a standardised structure to carry information regarding common end-to-end distribution requirements. The Distribution Envelope is used to wrap one or more payloads in an ITK interaction. It is independent of any lower-level transport protocol, and provides a set of features including:

- End-to-end message identification
- Declaration of original service name, preserved end-to-end
- Addressing information about the recipient(s)
- Information about the sender, for auditing
- Information (“metadata”) about the payload(s)

For further details on the use of the Distribution Envelope, consult the ITK Core Pack (available on TRUD).

| This work is based on material originally published in the HL7 Version 3 Standard, © 2002-2004 by Health Level Seven, Incorporated. Readers are recommended to consult the indicated versions of referenced materials as published by HL7 or HL7 UK. Membership details for HL7 UK are available at www.hl7.org.uk. The authors gratefully acknowledge input from HL7 UK and HL7 members during the development of this work. The messages are designed to meet NHS requirements as an implementation specification of the HL7 Version 3 standards material available during development.