The custodian element represents the organization that is in charge of maintaining and is entrusted with the care of the document.

This information is required by the CDA R2 standard and shall be recorded in the ClinicalDocument/custodian/assignedCustodian/ representedCustodianOrganization element.

There is only one custodian per CDA document. Allowing that a CDA document may not represent the original form of the authenticated document, the custodian represents the steward of the original source document. The custodian may be the document originator, a health information exchange, or other responsible party.