In the previous article, we talked about the flow of data to request the test and receive the results of the requested test. Now let's talk about one of the most important messages of HL7v2 standard.

Every time a receiving application accepts a message and consumes the message data, it is expected to send an ACKnowledgement (ACK) message back to the sending application. The sending application is expected to keep on sending a message until it has received an ACK message. It is done to inform the sending application that its message was successfully received, that it is (not) valid in accordance with HL7 rules and, if it is compliant, that it will be processed at some point.

HL7 (Health Level 7) is a set of technical specifications for computerized exchanges of clinical, financial and administrative data between hospital information systems (HIS). These specifications are variously integrated into the corpus of formal American (ANSI) and international (ISO) standards.

The L7 of HL7 indicates that it is a standard that operates at layer 7, in other words at the application layer, of the OSI model. This means that HL7 does not have to take into account exchange security considerations, or those of message transport (this being ensured by lower-level layers such as SSL/TLS for security or TCP for the transport of data for example). To be more precise, layer 7 supports communications for end-user processes and applications and the presentation of data for user-facing software applications. As the highest layer of the OSI model, and the closest to the end user, layer 7 provides application-specific functions such as identifying communication partners and the quality of service between them, determining resource availability, considering privacy and user authentication, and synchronizing communication, as well as connecting the application to the lower levels of the OSI model.

Returning to the HL7 standard, the HL7 version 2 standard (also known as Pipehat) was originally created in 1989 but is still being used and updated regularly, resulting in versions 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 2.3.1, 2.4, 2.5, 2.5.1, 2.6, 2.7, 2.7.1, 2.8, 2.8.1, 2.8.2 and 2.9. The v2.x standards are backward compatible (e.g., a message based on version 2.3 will be understood by an application that supports version 2.6) and in higher versions, you will see some fields are left just for it.

Despite it being more than 30 years old, HL7v2 remains the most widely used healthcare interface standard by a large margin according to the HL7.org portal that tells that:

InterSystems announces another developer preview release, as part of the developer preview program for the 2022.3. Many updates and enhancements have been added in 2022.3 and there are also brand new capabilities, such as the new FHIR SQL Builder, improvements for Columnar Storage, and support to Oracle Linux 9. Some of these features or improvements may not be available in this current developer preview.

When creating a PRA (Privileged Routine Application; which by the way is not relevant just for Routines but also for Classes/Methods), it is important to make sure you include a new $ROLES, before calling

Hi Community,

I need assistance to query ODS FHIR server to retrieve only one record.At the moment I am getting multiple records returned as seen below.

Is there a way to specify a parameter that will return a single record instead of 21 because it's the same practitioner returned 21 times.

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to this engine so I was wondering what the best approach for creating a dynamic mapper to downgrade from one HL7 version to another (e.g 2.4 to 2.3) with the DTL Editor, It seems like something that would be quite commonly needed but I haven't found a method that works yet,

Good morning,

We have been investigating how to activate a Server to Generate Tokens and an associated Resource Server to Validate the Token. This step, actually we have found out with the invaluable support of @Alberto Fuentes from Intersystems.

InterSystems is proud to announce another developer preview release, as part of the developer preview program for the 2022.3. Many updates and enhancements have been added in 2022.3 and there are also brand new capabilities, such as the new FHIR SQL Builder, improvements for Columnar Storage, and support to Oracle Linux 9 (not in this preview yet).

Morning everyone,

I would appreciate some advice please- hopefully there is plenty of experts out there.

We are setting up an sFTP share between hospital trusts here in the UK and I have set the outbound operation up using a custom extension of EnsLib.HL7.Operation.FTPOperation.

We are configuring a VPN tunnel to run between the sites also so there is a bit of firewall / network routing to take place to enable the connection but to add in a complication we are on a mirrored cluster and usually present on a Virtual IP address.

HealthShare Unified Care Record Fundamentals December 12-16, 2022 9:00am-5:00pm US-Eastern Tim

InterSystems is proud to announce the developer preview program for the 2022.3 releases. Many updates and enhancements have been added in 2022.3 and there are also brand new capabilities, such as the new FHIR SQL Builder, improvements for Columnar Storage, and support to Oracle Linux 9 (not in this first preview).

HealthShare Patient Index November 29-December 1, 2022 9:00am-5:00 US-Eastern Time (EST)

There is documentation for single dolalr macros but $$$ dollar seems to be referenced on individual pages or not at all.

A mistake happened and records were assigned the wrong assigning authority name: PID3.4.

Everything else was correct. This resulted in duplicate records. Ex

Record 1: MRN1 has AA1 and clinical data

Record 2: MRN1 has AA2 and the same clinical data as Record 1 + more clinical data that is not in Record 1

I would like to remove Record 2 ensuring that there are no orphan records left.