Healthcare Level Seven International develops HL7 to furnish a structure that helps commute, integrate and retrieve electronic health data. It connects health organizations around the globe to create networks and share data that supports the healthcare system.
How does HL7 work?
In general, hospitals and other healthcare departments have well-established computer systems to keep records of everything- from billing to patient tracking.
HL7 offers standards that make it feasible to transfer pharmacy data, laboratory findings, and other facts and figures between several computer systems among many international efforts to build more systems.
HL7 is one of the most widely used standards of international levels to support the healthcare structure, clinical operations, assessment, and transmission of healthcare specifics.
Among the broadest “health information system vendors” of the US, 90% are members of HL7.
Since HL7 aims to supply norms that work as optimizers of workflow, it expands care delivery and decreases ambiguity by improving knowledge exchange among all stakeholders.
The use of HL7 seems indispensable in healthcare. HL7, being an excellent means of transferring data between healthcare departments, its integration has made sharing of data easier and efficient for organizations.
Precisely, while other organizations that develop standards are incorporated in medical equipment or featuring pharmacy, HL7 is used to exchange clinical and administrative information.
It is often misunderstood that HL7 develops software; however, as a non-profit organization, its members- vendors, SODs, government agencies, etc., form the standards. As aforementioned, its most operated standard is messaging standard that enhances communication and data sharing.
Following are the features of HL7 and examples of how it is used in healthcare.
- It helps to link all health IT applications making it easier to share healthcare information. In addition, in comparison to old methods, it is more organized.
- HL7 Version 2, used for over 30 years, precedes much of the technology- XML, HTTP, JSON, etc.- we currently use to read articles like this. It is a good messaging standard for the sharing of patient care and treatment information globally. It also enhances hospital workflow.
- HL7 Version 3 , as a succeeding step in healthcare for exchanging data, is evolved using HL7 Development Framework or HDF with the support of the HL7 Reference Information Model (RIM).
- With adaptable document architecture using XML, it is established by blending standard terminology with standard classifications. It is an organized means of sharing data that can be reused in any context.
- HL7 provides various templates of messaging systems known as the object type definition (OTP) library. Using this message library, healthcare professionals build interfaces conforming to HL7 standards and then customize those messages as per need.
- With HL7 standards allowing workers to interact online, three working group meetings are qualified annually.
- Its standards provide worthwhile educational opportunities to healthcare IT organizations, such as various tutorials and certification testing.
- Healthcare providers, specifically specialists, need to access diverse computer systems to identify appropriate diagnoses for patients, especially when they are providing ambulatory services. It is the time when HL7 and Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) come into play as they link them to heterogeneous health maintenance departments.
- Healthcare needs HL7 to connect various systems to build on an integrated structure. In addition, as healthcare adapts to rising devices and data types, it has improved standards to enhance relativity and explaining rules to support new cases.
- While managing healthcare data and boosting care delivery, vendors and health professionals store and share data using HL7 guidelines to integrate wide-ranging data systems.
- Many hospitals use HL7, and its tools help manage staff scheduling and patient data. They even supply guidelines to understand the compilation of data.
- XML-formatted standard, another level of HL7, explains the labeling of human medication content. Finally, CDA or Clinical Document Architecture enables standards important to semantics, structure, and encoding of shareable clinical documents.
To Sum Up:
Communication between multiple hospitals, healthcare institutions, private clinics, laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, and other health units is a serious challenge. To bridge the gap between them by providing software, HL7 and its members form directions and standards to interchange medical data.
HL7 standards allow file-based transfer across global healthcare communities. Its flexible features simplify the exchange of advice, organization of public health information, smooth flow, and data availability to care, providers, and health professionals.
Adopting systems like HL7 helps organizations to create a network to make content available to specialists working in outpatient clinics with a fully structured approach to combine healthcare applications defining structures.
Examples of How HL7 is Used in Healthcare
