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.
#1 by Steven Jones at January 24th, 2009
| Quote
The timing of this site couldn’t be better for me. I’m ramping up from scratch and will be taking good notes. Thanks for taking on this task – I will do my part to share your work with my colleagues.
#2 by Day Trading at May 1st, 2009
| Quote
Great post very informative and I will be linking back to your site from mine.