The document provides an introduction and overview of HL7, including:
- HL7 is a protocol for exchanging healthcare data between systems that defines messages and procedures for exchanging them.
- It aims to enable interoperability between different healthcare IT systems.
- HL7 messages are composed of segments, fields, and components that provide specific types of patient, clinical, or administrative data.
- Common HL7 messages are used for admissions, discharges, patient registration, orders, results, and other clinical and administrative workflows.
HL7
Health level 7
What is HL7?
What does it stand for
HL7 Mission
HL7 contains message standards
HL7 in HealthcareManagement System
Standards
Limitations of HL7
An overview of the interoperability standard - Health Level 7
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for
MI 224: Coding, Classification, and Terminology in Medicine
MS Health Informatics
UP Manila College of Medicine
Full lecture with narration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjUy6k328gk
HL7
Health level 7
What is HL7?
What does it stand for
HL7 Mission
HL7 contains message standards
HL7 in HealthcareManagement System
Standards
Limitations of HL7
An overview of the interoperability standard - Health Level 7
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for
MI 224: Coding, Classification, and Terminology in Medicine
MS Health Informatics
UP Manila College of Medicine
Full lecture with narration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjUy6k328gk
The Biggest Barriers to Healthcare InteroperabilityHealth Catalyst
Improving healthcare interoperability is a top priority for health systems today. Fundamental problems around improving interoperability include standardization of terminology and normalization of data to those standards. And, the volume of data healthcare IT systems produce exacerbates these problems.
While interoperability regulations focus on trying to make it easy to find and exchange patient data across multiple organizations and HIEs, the legislation’s lack of fine print and aggressive implementation timelines nearly ensures the proliferation of existing interoperability problems. This article discusses the biggest barriers to interoperability, possible solutions to interoperability problems, and why it matters.
Presentation for UP Health Informatics HI201 under Dr. Iris Tan and Dr. Mike Muin. The topic for discussion Interoperability & Standards, a healthcare scenario was given regarding two disparate information systems, one found in a clinic, another with a hospital information system. #MSHI #HI201
Railhealth Electronic Medical Record encompasses the information and capabilities required to support healthcare service delivery. This presentation gives you the information regarding the features, objectives and the benefits what doctor gets by using our EMR.
This presentation talks about the context of developing the Electronic Health records for India. the guidelines as mentioned in the GOI site is described vividly with examples, for better understanding.
N.B: Please download the ppt first, for the animations to work better.
What is Health Informatics?
HI Goals
HI stakeholders
HI subfields / subspecialties
Healthcare trends & HI
HI professional environments
HI education / training opportunities & degrees
HI organizations / journals / meetings / events
HI professional certificates
HI books
A brief introduction to SNOMED CT - the ontology based medical terminology. This covers the basic definitions, the difference between SNOMED CT and ICD9, Post co-ordination use-cases and some general information.
This is not an extensive guide for SNOMED CT adoption in a system
A presentation by Dr. Shailendra Kumar, Delhi University, during National Workshop on Library 2.0: A Global Information Hub, Feb 5-6, 2009 at PRL Ahmedabad
Presented at the 7th Healthcare CIO Certificate Program, Hospital Administration School, Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University on September 15, 2016
The Biggest Barriers to Healthcare InteroperabilityHealth Catalyst
Improving healthcare interoperability is a top priority for health systems today. Fundamental problems around improving interoperability include standardization of terminology and normalization of data to those standards. And, the volume of data healthcare IT systems produce exacerbates these problems.
While interoperability regulations focus on trying to make it easy to find and exchange patient data across multiple organizations and HIEs, the legislation’s lack of fine print and aggressive implementation timelines nearly ensures the proliferation of existing interoperability problems. This article discusses the biggest barriers to interoperability, possible solutions to interoperability problems, and why it matters.
Presentation for UP Health Informatics HI201 under Dr. Iris Tan and Dr. Mike Muin. The topic for discussion Interoperability & Standards, a healthcare scenario was given regarding two disparate information systems, one found in a clinic, another with a hospital information system. #MSHI #HI201
Railhealth Electronic Medical Record encompasses the information and capabilities required to support healthcare service delivery. This presentation gives you the information regarding the features, objectives and the benefits what doctor gets by using our EMR.
This presentation talks about the context of developing the Electronic Health records for India. the guidelines as mentioned in the GOI site is described vividly with examples, for better understanding.
N.B: Please download the ppt first, for the animations to work better.
What is Health Informatics?
HI Goals
HI stakeholders
HI subfields / subspecialties
Healthcare trends & HI
HI professional environments
HI education / training opportunities & degrees
HI organizations / journals / meetings / events
HI professional certificates
HI books
A brief introduction to SNOMED CT - the ontology based medical terminology. This covers the basic definitions, the difference between SNOMED CT and ICD9, Post co-ordination use-cases and some general information.
This is not an extensive guide for SNOMED CT adoption in a system
A presentation by Dr. Shailendra Kumar, Delhi University, during National Workshop on Library 2.0: A Global Information Hub, Feb 5-6, 2009 at PRL Ahmedabad
Presented at the 7th Healthcare CIO Certificate Program, Hospital Administration School, Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University on September 15, 2016
Social Media Use by Doctors: Advice for Safety and for Effectiveness (Februar...Nawanan Theera-Ampornpunt
Presented at the 10th Ramathibodi GI and Liver Annual Review 2017, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University on February 4-5, 2017
Information+Integration ? Innovation an HL7/EFMI/HIMSS @eHealthweek2015 in Rigachronaki
Join us to explore “Interoperability in action: information + integration = innovation?” and engage in lively debate on how rethinking interoperability standards and continuing education can bridge divides, change cultures, and open markets!
Perspectives from health management, industry, government, health education, and standardization exemplify challenges and opportunities for liberation of data that can drive desired social and technological innovation.
This is a call for action to explore how the partnership of HL7, EFMI and HIMSS can catalyze the equation “information + integration = innovation” to bridge divides, change culture and open markets.
Case Study "Enabling Data Interoperability through the Healthcare Continuum”
Charles Jaffe, MD
CEO
Health Level 7 (HL7)
iHT2 case studies and presentations illustrate challenges, successes and various factors in the outcomes of numerous types of health IT implementations. They are interactive and dynamic sessions providing opportunity for dialogue, debate and exchanging ideas and best practices. This session will be presented by a thought leader in the provider, payer or government space.
: HL7 Survival Guide - Chapter 7 – Gap AnalysisCaristix
This guide is for healthcare integration analysts and their managers. In this chapter, learn how to set up a crucial HL7 document: the gap analysis. Once you have the needed profiles for your source and destination systems, you need to capture a list of all the gaps existing between the two systems.
HL7 Interface Lifecycle Management at Interconnected Health 2012Caristix
http://caristix.com
HL7 Integration: From Trial and Error to Predictable Project Outcomes
By nature, an HL7interfacing project consists of many unknown unknowns. And far too many teams rely on trial and error and drawn-out iterative processes to get projects completed. Unfortunately, those in charge often lack the transparency into accurate information about project status. With complex projects, the result all too often is an inability to predictably hit a target go-live date, impacting planning and the ability of leadership to extract the maximum value from project resources.
This presentation introduces a new concept, Interface Lifecycle Management, which covers 7 key stages that every healthcare organization goes through when implementing interfaces. These steps are: scoping, configuration, validation, go-live, monitoring, maintenance and support, and finally, an upgrade decision when sending systems change. Using examples drawn from providers and HIT vendors, the presenter will cover best practices and automation strategies that leadership can implement during each step regardless of interface engine or integration technology in use.
Binary Spectrum provides data standard for an healthcare organization through the HL7 seventh layer (application layer) of the communication systems, interoperability to exchange health data.
Explains about how to Enhance knowledge transfer among all of stakeholders including healthcare providers. For more information visit: http://www.transformhealth-it.org/
This guide is for healthcare integration analysts and their managers. In this chapter, learn how to get maximum value from the work that has gone into creating interfacing artifacts, assets, and documentation.
Presented at the 8th Healthcare CIO Certificate Program, Hospital Administration School, Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University on March 21, 2018
Ontologising the Health Level Seven (HL7) StandardRatnesh Sahay
Ontologising the Health Level Seven (HL7) Standard
This relates to my PhD work [1] but now gaining momentum….good to see that.
[1]http://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10379/3034/ratnesh.sahay_PhDThesis.pdf?sequence=1
HL7 AS A COMMON HEALTHCARE COMMUNICATION FORMAT
Andy Stopford, Technical Director, Havas Lynx
Andy Stopford has over 16 years experience leading teams to deliver pioneering software solutions that enable business goals to be achieved. With experience drawn from the e-commerce, financial, insurance, banking and healthcare sectors he is committed to creating quality software that adheres to best practices and delivers solutions that are robust and help clients achieve business goals.
Andy is a software engineer by trade and is a published book author and keen writer with 200 magazine and journal articles over his career. He has a great depth and breadth of knowledge in a variety of technologies and is passionate about all things software engineering.
Andy leads the HAVAS HEALTH SOFTWARE team of software engineers to develop solutions that focus on the best possible outcome for the end user that ensure the business needs are met.
@andystopford
ORIGINAL PAPERIntegration of IEEE 1451 and HL7 Exchanging .docxalfred4lewis58146
ORIGINAL PAPER
Integration of IEEE 1451 and HL7 Exchanging Information
for Patients’ Sensor Data
Wooshik Kim & Suyoung Lim & Jinsoo Ahn &
Jiyoung Nah & Namhyun Kim
Received: 19 March 2009 /Accepted: 26 May 2009 /Published online: 17 June 2009
# The Author(s) 2009. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract HL7 (Health Level 7) is a standard developed for
exchanging incompatible healthcare information generated
from programs or devices among heterogenous medical
information systems. At present, HL7 is growing as a
global standard. However, the HL7 standard does not
support effective methods for treating data from various
medical sensors, especially from mobile sensors. As
ubiquitous systems are growing, HL7 must communicate
with various medical transducers. In the area of sensor
fields, IEEE 1451 is a group of standards for controlling
transducers and for communicating data from/to various
transducers. In this paper, we present the possibility of
interoperability between the two standards, i.e., HL7 and
IEEE 1451. After we present a method to integrate them
and show the preliminary results of this approach.
Keywords Smart transducer. HL7 . IEEE 1451 .
Sensor network . u-healthcare
Introduction
HL7 is a messaging standard for exchanging medical
information that is becoming a world standard. Among
medical information such as a text or an image, HL7 deals
with text information (HL7 Organization. [http://www.hl7.
org]; HL7 Version 2.5.1 Messaging Standard). Recently, as
the ubiquitous era is approaching, a new type of informa-
tion, i.e., streaming data, has appeared. These data usually
come from sensors from various networks such as wireless
LANs, wired LANs, or cellular networks and increasingly
have important role in e-healthcare, u-healthcare, and other
health systems. Since various wireless networks are widely
spread and the performances of many devices such as
PDAs, notebooks, or cellular phones improve, the use of
sensors for patients will become popular as well, and thus
the quality of life for patients will improve. Sooner or later,
HL7 should include information from mobile patients,
mobile devices, and mobile sensors.
In the area of electrical and mechanical engineering,
sensors have been used for a long time to check and
monitor the status of machines and devices. In these areas,
there has been a group of standards IEEE 1451 which deal
with various aspects of sensors, such as the definition of
sensors and actuators, the format of data sheets, and how to
connect and disconnect the sensors from a system. Also,
these standards deal with communication protocols. Re-
cently, the advent of various sensors such as wireless
sensors has led the IEEE to develop a complete set of
standards that deal with these types of sensors [1–5]. The
family of IEEE 1451 standards will become a global
standard in all areas that use sensors.
This paper studies the possibilities of the interoperability
of the two standards;.
2. Agenda
What, Why, When HL7?
Need of HL7
HL7 in Healthcare Management Systems
Message
Message encoding schemes
V2 and V3
3. What, Why, When HL7?
Need of HL7
HL7 in Healthcare Management Systems
Message
Message encoding schemes
V2 and V3
4. What? What is HL7 (Health Level Seven)?
• Protocol for data exchange between computer
systems in health care environments.
• Defines messages as they are exchanged and the
procedures used for exchanging them.
• Refers to the top layer (Level 7) of OSI/ISO layer
model (see next slide).
• ANSI standard since 1997 most widely used in
USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
5. What is HL7 (Health Level Seven)?
HL7 contains message standards covering:
•Patient Administration
•Orders for Clinical Services and Observations,
Pharmacy, Nutrition and Supplies order entry
•Patient Accounting and Charges
•Observation Reporting
•Document Management Services
•Appointment Scheduling
•Laboratory Automation
•Personnel Management
•…
6. What is HL7 (Health Level Seven)?
Type of network communication
Application
(e-mail, telnet, FTP, HL7)
Presentation Data conversion, encryption
Controlling dialogues (sessions).
Session Establishing, terminating and
restarting connection.
Transport Routing, reliable data
TCP/IP transport between two
computers
Network
Network adapter: Ethernet, wireless
Data-Link
Ethernet
Physical Physical link: Ethernet cable, RS-232,
optical link
7. What, Why, When HL7?
Need of HL7
HL7 in Healthcare Management Systems
Message
Message encoding schemes
V2 and V3
8. A Complete Solution
Interoperability
Open System
9. Interoperability…
“Interoperability is the ability of two or
more systems or components to
exchange information and to use the
information that has been exchanged.
• ‘Functional’ interoperability is the capability
to reliably exchange information without
error.
• ‘Semantic’ interoperability is the ability to
interpret, and, therefore, to make effective use
of the information so exchanged.”
• ‘Process’ Interoperability makes system
Integral to (healthcare delivery) process,
work flow.
10. Interoperability Definition -
(U.S. Executive Order)
“’Interoperability’ means the ability to communicate
and exchange data accurately, effectively, securely,
and consistently with different information technology
systems, software applications, and networks in
various settings, and exchange data such that clinical
or operational purpose and meaning of the data are
preserved and unaltered.”
- President Bush, 22 August 2006
11. A Very Brief History of HL7
HL7 = Health Level 7
2.X
Founded in 1987-
2.0 was created in 1988 –
2.1 ->2.3 1990-1999
versions 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.3.1, 2.4, 2.5, 2.5.1 and 2.6.
3.0
12. EHR Interoperability Model Objectives
1. Establish a common reference for EHR Record Interoperability -
Statement of requirements
2.Gain industry consensus via HL7’s (ANSI accredited) open, standards
development process
3.Establish current and forward benchmarks to achieve persistent legal
EHR Records
4.Establish testable conformance criteria for validation of EHR Records.
5.Specify EHR Record in context of its flow and lifecycle including
Preservation of semantic meaning.
6.Specify EHR Record in context as immediate record (documentation) of
Health(care) delivery process
7.Specify Common EHR Record Unit, sufficient to document all
healthcare Acts/Actions Establish as Complementary companion to EHR-
S Functional Model
13. Proprietary system model:
• Closed-system model is easier to design and
initially costs less to implement
• Greater reliability on single vendors
• More reliance on specific applications and
technologies
14. Adhering to a standard protocol is called "open system
architecture". Anybody can interface with an open system
using appropriate protocols, independent of its vendor. When
using HL7, the interface allows for numerous systems to be
added to a single HL7 feed.
15. What, Why, When HL7?
Need of HL7
HL7 in Healthcare Management Systems
Message
Message encoding schemes
V2 and V3
17. Outbound Vs Inbound
Inbound – Data coming to the application
Outbound – Data being exported out of application.
So all data being passed from MaximEyes SQL
EHR to external application is called Outbound and
all data being passed into MaximEyes SQL EHR is
called Inbound.
19. ACK
Every time an application accepts a message and
processes the data it sends an Acknowledgement
back to the sending application. The important part
of an ACK is that it means the other systems has not
only received but processed the message that was
sent.
NACK is a negative ACK that contains an error in
that is sent back to the sending application.
20. What, Why, When HL7?
Need of HL7
HL7 in Healthcare Management Systems
Message
Message encoding schemes
V2 and V3
21. What’s the Message
Messages are the base format used for all HL7
communication
Data formatted with HL7 Encoding Rules and
Message Construction Rules.
A message is the atomic unit of data
transferred between systems. It is comprised of
a group of segments in a defined sequence.
Each message has a message type that defines
its purpose.
“Z”
22. Message Type
Type of message describes the content – What
part of Message
Defines the purpose for the message being sent
Ex. ADT Message type is used to transmit portions of a
patient's Patient Administration (ADT) data from one
system to another.
Refers HL7 Table 0076 - Message type
Position in Message - MSH field 9.1
23. Trigger Event
Type of message describes the content – Why part
of message
There is a one-to-many relationship between
message types and trigger event codes.
explicit set of conditions that initiate the transfer
of information
Refers HL7 Table 0003 - Event type
Position in Message - MSH field 9.2
A patient is registered(A04)
An appointment is booked (S12)
24. Message structure
ADT^A04 Register a patient
ADT^A08 Update patient information
ADT^A01 Admit/visit notification
ADT^A23 Delete a patient record
MFN^M02 Master file - staff practitioner
MFN^M05 Patient location master file
ORU^R01 Unsolicited transmission of an observation
message
VXU^V04Unsolicited vaccination record update
25. Delimiters
Special characters that separate one composite in a segment
from another, or separate one sub-composite from another.
Character Description
<CR> or 0x0D Segment
Delimiter/Terminator
| Field(Composite) delimiter
^ Sub-field (Component)
delimiter
& Sub-sub field
(subcomponent) delimiter
~ Repetition delimiter
ESCAPE Character
26. Character Escape Sequence
& T
^ S
| F
~ R
E
Hexadecimal character
Xxx..
xx
27. Segments
Each line in a message is referred to as a Segment.
Segments are units that comprise messages. Hence each Segment
has its own semantic purpose or function
There are over 120 types of Segments that can be used.
A segment is defined as a sequence of fields
Examples of HL7 message segments:
• MSH - Message Header
information about a message
• EVN - Event Type
event information
• PID - Patient Identification
information about a patient
• NK1 - Next of Kin
information about the patient's other related parties
• OBR - Observation Request
information about an order
• OBX - Observation Report
information about a result
“Z”
28. More on segments
•Segments and segment groups A segment is a logical
grouping of data fields.
•Segments of a message may be required or optional.
•Each Segment provides a specific type of data to be
sent.
•Some segments such as OBX, NTE, NK1, or AL1 can
be repeating.
•An example is the NK1 segment which consists of
“next of kin/associated parties" will repeat several
times if a person has several next of kin relationships
30. Fields (Composites)
A field is a string of characters.
Fields for use within HL7 segments are defined by HL7.
HL7 does not care how systems actually store data within
an application. When fields are transmitted, they are sent
as character strings.
Fields are the specific fields of a segment. The fields can
be either a primitive data type such as a string number,
alpha or alphanumeric or it can be made up of other
composites (components).
Null. Any existing value for the corresponding data base
element in the receiving application should be deleted.
This is symbolically communicated as two double-quotes
between the delimiters (i.e., |""|)
31. Fields (Continued..)
Have constraint for –
• Position - Ordinal position of the data field within the segment
• Data type - Basic building block used to construct or restrict the contents of a data.
• Optionality Whether the field is required, optional, or conditional in a segment.
Value Description
R Required
O Optional
C Conditional
X Not used with this trigger event
B Backward compatible
32. Repetition - Whether the field may repeat.
Maximum length - Max number of characters that
one occurrence of the data field may occupy.
Fields are restricted for structure by HL7 defined
Datatypes.
Count is 160+ for 2.5.1
33.
34. Data Exchange
•No data exchange, messaging and communication
technologies are determined by HL7.
•Frequently used protocols in HL7 implementations:
MLLP (Minimal Lower Layer Protocol)
TCP/IP based
SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) – XML
based
Batch Files – messages in text files exchanged
by FTP and SMTP or offline via a tape or a
diskette
35. What, Why, When HL7?
Need of HL7
HL7 in Healthcare Management Systems
Message
Message encoding schemes
V2 and V3
36. Message encoding schemes
HL7 uses two encoding schemes:
• HL7 ER, also known as 'traditional' HL7 format;
used for HL7 versions 2.x
• XML
primary encoding scheme for HL7 v 3.0
can be used for HL7 v 2.x in environments
where sender and receiver both understand XML
38. Message encoding schemes
XML
Sample message encoded using XML scheme
<!DOCTYPE ACK SYSTEM "hl7_v231.dtd">
<ACK>
<MSH>
<MSH.1>|</MSH.1>
<MSH.2>^~&</MSH.2>
<MSH.3>
<HD.1>LAB</HD.1>
<HD.2>foo</HD.2>
<HD.3>bar</HD.3>
</MSH.3>
<MSH.4><HD.1>767543</HD.1></MSH.4>
<MSH.5><HD.1>ADT</HD.1></MSH.5>
<MSH.6><HD.1>767543</HD.1></MSH.6>
<MSH.7>19900314130405</MSH.7>
...
...
</MSH>
39. Message encoding schemes
HL7 is not Plug & Play
•Basic reasons – Missing Fields, Same Data in
Different Fields, Same Data in Different Formats,
Different Versions, Missing Values (including
mandatory fields), Invalid Segment Grammar
•Not all data types may be coded using standard HL7
format. For these types vendor specific messages and
fields must be used.
•When deploying system utilizing HL7 interface, it still
must be adapted to hospital-specific requirements.
40. What, Why, When HL7?
Need of HL7
HL7 in Healthcare Management Systems
Message
Message encoding schemes
V2 and V3
41.
42. HL7 V2
• Not “Plug and Play” – it provides 80 percent of the
interface and a framework to negotiate the remaining 20
percent on an interface-by-interface basis
• Historically built in an ad hoc way because no
other standard existed at the time
• Generally provides compatibility between 2.X
versions
• Messaging-based standard built upon pipe and hat
encoding
• In the U.S., V2 is what most people think of when
people say “HL7?
43. HL7 V3
• Approaching “Plug and Play” – less of a
“framework for negotiation”
• Many decades of effort over ten year period
reflecting “best and brightest” thinking
• NOT backward compatible with V2
• Model-based standard built upon Reference
Information Model (RIM) provides consistency across
entire standard
• In the U.S., when Clinical Document
Architecture (CDA) is what most people in the U.S.
think of when people say “HL7 V3?
44. The difficulties with HL7 3.0 :
1.Despite the length of time it has been under development, the
3.0 standard has not yet been clearly defined.
2.Very few health-care facilities have migrated to version 3.0,
since this version is not compatible with version 2.X.
Applications that support version 3.0 would also need to support
version 2.X.
3.Creating an interface between version 2.X and version 3.0
would be difficult and expensive.
Because of these difficulties, version 2.X remains the standard
that is used by both healthcare facilities and vendors.
45. HL7 interface should not be contained on a mobile device
•HL7 interfaces need to be persistent
•Configuration and change management
•Licensing concerns
•Database and storage issues:
Editor's Notes
In recent years “interoperability” has been a topic of great interest to the healthcare community. Many interoperability definitions have been offered, multiple interoperability claims have been made. The HL7 EHR TC has taken a particular interest to ensure that EHR interoperability is not just a byword but that industry consensus could be achieved regarding “What is EHR interoperability?” and that EHR interoperability could in fact be manifest via testable conformance criteria. A first order of business for the EHR Interoperability Team was to conduct a survey of industry sources for their definitions of “interoperability”. Over 100 definitions were reviewed, both US and international. The assessment and findings are now available in a white paper entitled “Coming to Terms”, authored by Pat Gibbons of Mayo Clinic. In this assessment, it was evident that there are three primary aspects of “interoperability”: technical, semantic and process. If “it” is healthcare information (in the form of data and records): a) Technical Interoperability ensures it’s structure, syntax and reliable communication b) Semantic Interoperability preserves it’s full meaning c) Process Interoperability makes it integral to the health (care delivery process and work flow) The White Paper was foundational to development of the EHR Interoperability Model as it provided a clear focus on “What is Interoperability?”
Objectives for the EHR IM include: • Establishing a common industry reference for EHR Record interoperability • Establishing a requirements-first standard specification for EHR Record Interoperability • Establishing a model that is focused on interoperability characteristics of EHR records as a complementary companion to the HL7 EHR-S Functional Model (which is focused on functional characteristics of EHR Systems) • Establishing testable conformance criteria for validation of EHR Records • Establishing a framework to promote the use of EHR’s in a legal context • Specifying the EHR Record in context of its record flow and lifecycle, including origination, retention, interchange, protection, access, and use • Specifying the EHR Record in context as an immediate record (documentation) of the health delivery process, integral to work flow and concurrent to clinical practice • Specifying What (i.e., EHR Interoperability Characteristics) and Why (i.e., Rationale), but not HOW (i.e., Architectures and Implementations) • Establishing a specification of the EHR Record that is technology-, vendor-, and product-neutral • Using the HL7 v3 Reference Information Model to rigorously describe the primary EHR Record classes of Act, Actor, Role, and Participation • Leveraging the HL7/ANSI open consensus standards development process to achieve industry collaboration and agreement • Balloting and publishing a draft standard for trial use (DSTU) as precedent to a full normative standard • Enabling conformance profiles specific to care settings, realms, products, implementations, and uses • Ensuring the integrity and persistence of semantic meaning in EHR interchanges
The same trigger event code may not be associated with more than one message type; however a message type may be associated with more than one trigger event code.
If an HL7 message contains one of the special delimiter characters as part of its message content, you can use a special escape sequence to specify the delimiter character. This ensures that any application that processes HL7 messages can always distinguish between a delimiter character and a character that is part of the message text.
C - conditional on the trigger event or on some other field(s). The field definitions following the segment attribute table should specify the algorithm that defines the conditionality for this field. B - left in for backward compatibility with previous versions of HL7. The field definitions following the segment attribute table should denote the optionality of the field for prior versions.
Since 1997, the HL7 organization has been developing version 3.0 of the protocol. Unlike 2.X versions, HL7 3.0 is based largely on a single formal model called the Reference Information Model , or RIM . The goal of RIM is to reduce the implementation costs of HL7-enabled solutions and further standardize the HL7 communication specifications between healthcare systems.