HL7

HL7 or Health Level Seven International is a set of international standards for the transfer of clinical and administrative data between software applications used by various healthcare providers. These standards focus on the application layer, which is "layer 7" in the OSI model. The HL7 standards are produced by the Health Level Seven International, an international standards organization, and are adopted by other standards issuing bodies such as American National Standards Institute and International Organization for Standardization.

History

HL7 was first established in 1987 to provide a protocol that would enable disparate healthcare applications to exchange key sets of clinical and administrative data. Since then, the HL7 standards have been widely adopted by many healthcare providers and are considered a critical component of a modern healthcare system.

Standards

HL7 standards are grouped into reference categories:

• Section 1: Primary Standards - These are the standards most commonly used and implemented. They include HL7 Version 2.x Messaging Standard, HL7 Version 3 Messaging Standard, and the Clinical Document Architecture (CDA).

• Section 2: Foundational Standards - These define the fundamental tools and building blocks used to build the standards, and the technology infrastructure that implementers of HL7 standards must manage.

• Section 3: Clinical and Administrative Domains - Messaging and document standards for specific clinical specialties and groups.

• Section 4: EHR Profiles - These standards provide functional models and profiles that enable the constructs for management of electronic health records.

• Section 5: Implementation Guides - These are a type of standard that provides implementation guidance to aid in the implementation and usage of other HL7 standards.

• Section 6: Rules and References - Technical specifications, programming structures and guidelines for software and standards development.

• Section 7: Education & Awareness - These are the standards that help to educate the healthcare industry on HL7 standards and other related knowledge.

Usage

HL7 standards are used by a wide variety of healthcare providers, including hospitals, clinics, and laboratories. They are also used by other entities such as pharmacy benefit managers and insurance companies. The standards are designed to enable these entities to exchange clinical and administrative data in a consistent and reliable manner, thereby improving the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare delivery.

See also

• Electronic Health Record
• Health Informatics
• Interoperability
• Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium
• Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine

HL7 Resources
Latest articles Most recent articles Ongoing trials	Wikipedia