Uh Oh – Like usual, I haven’t really had a lot of time to keep up with my planned HL7 blog.  Intially, as I was going through a new HL7 project myself, I was thinking that every time I learned something I’d be able to put it here in my blog.

Well, that hasn’t exactly worked out.

On top of that, I was browsing the HL7 side of the web today – and now it looks like the poeple over a Interfaceware have started their own HL7 blog.   I had a look – and I’m sad to say, it’s actually quite good.  They’ve got a big company behind them, so that’s gotta help, but when I started reading their posts, I saw that they were actually kinda of fun – and even included video.
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I’m starting to go through my lists to decide what I should write about first – and what I kept coming back to was my own personal list of HL7 Tools and software.

HL7 Tools List

The reality of HL7 is that it is really not “that” tricky of a standard – it’s just not that complex.  If you have a simple HL7 need – say, receiving simple HL7 ADT messages and saving the results to a database – and you only need to connect to one vendor to receive this messages, you really have a number of choices to building your interface.  If know know a little something about software design (coding), you just might be able to create a script to process the message and post the information to your database.  This is great – for now, but what happens if your vendor changes the way they send their HL7 messages?  Maybe they want to move to v.3.0?  What happens when your boss tells you that you need to expand your department and start connecting with sites across the country?  Do you have the man-power to keep rewritting and modifying you script to handle all the new sources?  Did you add a robust logging and management system originally so that you can now monitor all of these new incoming HL7 feeds?  Changes are no.

So, the next step you can take is to look at the open source HL7 solutions, like the Mirth Project.  The Mirth Project has been growing in popularity recently, but personally, I’m still more than a little skeptical.  Firstly, the first time I tried to install it (and I should mention that I am a software developer) it took me hours to get things up and running and then I found that making new connections was a very difficult task.  Then, after a little playing – once I start to see some potential in the product – I started looking in to their support structure.  That’s when I realized that Mirth wasn’t anything close to free!  They have one of the single most expensive support contracts of all the HL7 tools I’ve come across.

So, I started looking in the other companies and tools that I’ve heard of in the past;

Neotool
Interfaceware
Orion
BizTalk

Microsoft BizTalk HL7

HL7 Integration Engine

Orion Health / HL7

I’m not going to tell you which one of these is my favorite (though if you’ve ever talked to me, you know which one I adore), but they are all major players in the HL7 world and worth looking in to.

Furthermore, the site that I go back to time and time again to find out what HL7 tools and products are on the market is: http://www.hl7.org.au/HL7-Tools.htm

The owner of that site has done such a fantastic job at listing just about every major and minor HL7 tool that’s on the market today.  Trust me, if you want a crash course in HL7 tools, go to the link above, do a little reading and then just go through, contact some of the companies and request a demo.  The great thing about the HL7 space is that all the companies seem very willing not only to sell you their product – but also to help educate you on HL7 in general and how it can help you with your current problems.

So, what are you waiting for?  I’m still going to post information about HL7 (maybe some sample interfaces built using many of the tools mentioned above), but when it comes to HL7 tools, I really think the site above got it right.  I’m not one to reinvent the wheel, so instead, I just thought I’d share my private list with the rest of the world.

Good luck.

The first step to understand the HL7 Standard is to start looking at the terms often used related to HL7, Hl7 Messages and the Health Level 7 Organization as a whole.

HL7 Interface and Hl7 Interface Engine

Our first two terms are HL7 Interface and HL7 Interface Engine.

HL7 Interface:

An HL7 Interface Engine is a tool you can use to create your HL7 Interfaces – does that help?

Basically, the interface – or interfacing – is the system or logic that you’re going to put in place in order to connect two or more systems.  In terms of HL7, this can be done by having a vendor come in and customize their system – often very pricey – or it can be done by using an HL7 Interface Engine.  The engine sort of “sits” between the two systems and works as a broker or interpretor.  Both systems point their HL7 feeds at the engine, and then it handles, processes and routes the messages on to the other system in a format or version of HL7 that they can understand.

Check back tomorrow for your next lesson on HL7 terminology.

Creating the largest HL7 resource online

My goal, as of today, is to create the single largest resource of HL7 information available online.  It may sound like a crazy – or unachievable task (especially considering all the great HL7 information that is already online) – but I believe that the world really needs a comprehensive HL7 resource compilation.

The Health Level 7 (HL7) organization has create a powerful and widely used standard – but to many like myself, the task of learning what’s required to actually implement it seems overwhelming at first sight.  HL7 – the non-standard standard – is discussed across so many websites, by so many vendors, that it quickly becomes daunting to figure out where to begin.

So, starting today, I am going to compile everything I know about HL7 and the Health Level 7 organization in to clean, simply to follow blog posts.

My goal is that future HL7 implementors or implemntees (did I just coin a new HL7 term?) will be able to come to this site to learn everything they need to know to move forward with their HL7 interfaces.

Well, that’s all for me.  I could write some of my famous HL7 jokes and anecdotes right now – but then I’d have nothing left to saw tomorrow.

So for now, goodbye – but check back soon as the worlds largest HL7 resources is growing quickly!