HL7 Interface

A successful EMR implementation in 2011 is more than simply selecting the right EMR or EHR software for your medical practice or hospital.  It requires consideration of many key factors - including patient portal integration using approved standards for Health Information Exchange (HIE). The most commonly used interface standards in health care are

• Health Level Seven, or HL7
• Continuity of Care Record, or CCR
• Continuity of Care Document, or CCD

Medical Web Experts has developed its Basic Patient Portal and Enterprise Patient Portal solutions using the CCD standard.  While most patient portals - like Google Health – support only the CCR format, Medical Web Experts' solutions support the importation and exportation of personal health records in both CCR and CCD formats.

Since 2003, Medical Web Experts has made an enormous impression in the EMR industry. Beyond their strong reputation in healthcare web design and physician marketing, founder and President John Deutsch has worked with multiple EMR software companies and maintains an active role in improving the EMR experience for physicians and hospitals.

What is Health Level Seven (HL7)?

Health Level Seven International (HL7) is a not-for-profit, ANSI-accredited standards developing organization dedicated to providing a comprehensive framework and related standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information that supports clinical practice and the management, delivery and evaluation of health services.

Source: HL7

In the EMR industry, the term HL7 refers to as a set of standards developed by the HL7 organization. These typically include

• The Version 3 messaging standard
• Clinical Document Architecture or CDA - its V3-based standard

The CDA Release 2.0 provides an exchange model for clinical documents (such as discharge summaries and progress notes) - and brings the healthcare industry closer to the realization of an electronic medical record. By leveraging the use of XML, the HL7 Reference Information Model (RIM) and coded vocabularies, the CDA makes documents both machine-readable - so they are easily parsed and processed electronically - and human-readable - so they can be easily retrieved and used by the people who need them. CDA documents can be displayed using XML-aware Web browsers or wireless applications such as cell phones. While Release 2.0 retains the simplicity of rendering and clear definition of clinical documents formulated in Release 1.0 (2000), it provides state-of-the-art interoperability for machine-readable coded semantics. The product of 5 years of improvements, CDA R2 body is based on the HL7 Clinical Statement model, is fully RIM-compliant and capable of driving decision support and other sophisticated applications, while retaining the simple rendering of legally-authenticated narrative.

Source: HL7

Because many vendors don't offer integrated EMR/Practice Management solutions, HL7 is typically used between EMR and Practice Management/Medical Billing systems. Additionally, many healthcare organizations with a medical billing system already in place prefer to adopt an EMR from a different vendor and avoid the hassle of moving to a new billing system - thus requiring an interface to be built between the two systems. Medical Web Experts develops custom HL7 interface solutions for Patient Portal and EMR systems.