Design and implementation of a Web-based HL7 validation system

Abstract

Computer and communication technologies have been progressing rapidly in these few years, which speeds up the electronic medical record (EMR) development and increases the requirement of electronic data interchange (EDI) among healthcare organizations. Although the health data exchange standard of Health Level 7 (HL7) has been around more than a decade, hospitals have been applying the standard only recently, with little experience. Because the quality of the hospital information system (HIS) varies in each institution, it is difficult to judge whether the transmitted data match with the standards completely. If there is any mistake in the exchanged data, it will cause problems to the whole information system as well as to patient records. It is necessary to have a validation mechanism to verify the integrity of the data before data exchange. The authors introduce the method of implementing a Web based validation system providing HL7 message test services. This method may accept and parse HL7 messages and warn of errors in segments, sequences, required fields, field length, components, data types and valid values. The system is ready for HL7 version 2.3. Besides benefiting health care organizations, the system may also provide assistance to students who major in medical informatics.