Health Level Seven

Health Level Seven or HL7 refers to 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 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

Health Level Seven was founded in 1987 to provide a protocol for data exchange, management and integration. The name "Health Level Seven" is a reference to the seventh level of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model, also known as the application level.

Standards

HL7 and its members provide a framework (and related standards) for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information. These standards define how information is packaged and communicated from one party to another, setting the language, structure and data types required for seamless integration between systems. HL7 standards support clinical practice and the management, delivery, and evaluation of health services, and are recognized as the most commonly used in the world.

HL7 Segments

HL7 messages are made up of one or more segments. The segments are composed of composites or data elements. Each segment starts with a three character string that identifies the segment type. Each segment of the message contains one specific category of information. Every message has a MSH segment, which is always the first segment of the message.

HL7 Versions

There are several versions of HL7, including V2.x, V3.0, and HL7 FHIR. Each version is designed to address new problem domains, and to use and implement advances in technology and methodologies.

See Also

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

Health Level Seven Resources
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