Topic outline

• HL7 V2 QuickStart

  HL7 V2 QuickStart

  InterSystems IRIS for Health™ provides a platform for building scalable applications for healthcare interoperability. Each instance of InterSystems IRIS for Health comes with:

  • An integration engine for routing and transforming HL7® V2 messages
  • An API management tool for automating API endpoint creation
  • Security management tools for multiple users and roles
  • A multi-model database for resource storage and retrieval
  • Data analytics capabilities for making sense of HL7 V2 messages

  In the "Try It" section below, you will find steps for setting up an HL7 V2 application built on InterSystems IRIS for Health. You will also find a demonstration of the app in the "Watch It" section.
• Try It!

  Try It!

  In the following steps, you will review and launch an HL7 V2 application capable of receiving HL7 V2 messages. The application has been built for a small clinic that needs to route messages among their registration, research, lab, and billing facilities. Their application performs the following tasks:

  • Watches an inbound file folder for HL7 V2 messages coming from registration
  • Modifies incoming messages with updated information about the time
  • Routes updated messages to several endpoints:
    • Registered patient info is saved to a database along with the current time.
    • Observation requests are sent to the clinic's lab.
    • Billing-related information is sent to an external billing service.

  Start the exercise in one of two ways:

  1. Use an InterSystems Learning Lab by clicking the launcher button below.
  2. Try the exercise locally by visiting this GitHub repository and following along with the README.

  • You must be logged in to launch an InterSystems IRIS instance.

    • Log in with your existing account.
    • Don't have an InterSystems account? Create a new account.
  • Send an HL7 V2 Message to the Application for Transformation and Routing

    1. Locate the shared/ directory in the project files. The shared folder is mapped to share data with a directory within the InterSystems IRIS for Health instance.
       • If you are using Learning Labs: Look for the shared/directory under the IDE's project/ directory.
       • If you are using Docker: The shared/ directory for data should be located in the top folder of the repository, alongside the Docker files.
    2. Drag and drop the HL7 V2 message ADT_A01.txt from the shared/quickstarts-hl7/data/sample_data/ directory into the /shared/quickstarts-hl7/data/registration/ directory. The message should disappear from the registration/ directory upon being processed by the production.
    3. Find the directory shared/quickstarts-hl7/data/archive/ and notice that the incoming message has been copied here for future reference. Locate the shared/quickstarts-hl7/data/billing/ directory and the shared/quickstarts-hl7/data/lab/ directory, which should contain outgoing HL7 V2 messages. As you can see, the production has transformed the message differently for each endpoint. You can verify this by opening the messages in a text editor and comparing them.

    Explore the HL7 V2 application to track and view HL7 V2 messages

    1. The Management Portal is the landing page for managing any InterSystems IRIS instance. Log in using the InterSystems IRIS username and password provided in the launcher above (or in the repository README, if you are using Docker). In the Learning Labs, click InterSystems > InterSystems IRIS Management Portal in the IDE header bar. If you are using a Docker container, see the repository README.
       

    2. In the header bar of the Management Portal, switch namespaces to INTEROP. Navigate to the Production Configuration interface by navigating to Interoperability > Configure > Production. If the HL7QS.Production is not already running, click Start at the top of the page.

       This production has been built from the HL7 V2 production template provided with all instances of InterSystems IRIS for Health. Here, you can develop and monitor the pieces of the HL7 V2 production and the messages that are processed by it. Notice there are three columns: Services, Processes, and Operations.

       The architecture of this application follows from the standard architecture of an InterSystems IRIS for Health production. As you can see below, the leftmost column contains the services for data input, the middle column contains data transformation and routing, and the rightmost column handles data output.

       

    3. In the Message Viewer, you can see the HL7 V2 messages that have been passed between components. Select the business service fromRegFile, and then click the Messages tab in the right-most pane. Click Go to Message Viewer. Select one of the messages that was sent. Now click the Contents tab, where you can see the full contents of the incoming HL7 V2 message. Note that the raw text of the input file has been interpreted based on a designated HL7 V2 schema. Clicking on a field will bring you to the schema definition.

       

    4. With a message selected in the Message Viewer, select Trace > View Full Trace. This contains a diagram of all of the messages, services, processes, and operations in a single session of this production — that is, all the events resulting from a given call to fromRegFile.

    5. Let’s look at the SQL Explorer to make sure PatientRegDBOperation has saved the information extracted from the HL7 V2 message. Return to the Management Portal Home, ensure the namespace is INTEROP, navigate to System Explorer > SQL, and click Go. When data has been created or objects have been saved, the tables may be viewed here. In the Execute Query tab, retrieve the PatientReg data by executing the following query:

       Select * from HL7QS.PatientReg

       The table only includes a few columns with data extracted from the HL7 V2 message.

    6. Now you have seen a simple way to process HL7 V2 data using InterSystems IRIS for Health. The application accepts HL7 V2 data, transforms it, and routes it to several endpoints. Using the Management Portal interfaces, you can easily trace the flow of data through the application and view the contents of a message as it is processed. Further resources are located on the InterSystems learning site and the InterSystems documentation website.
• Watch It: HL7 V2 Processing in InterSystems IRIS for Health

  Watch It: HL7 V2 Processing in InterSystems IRIS for Health

  • Watch the following video to see a demonstration of the exercise above.
    
• What's Next?

  What's Next?

  • URLDocumentation: Install and Configure a FHIR production

    Read about creating your first FHIR production from the beginning.
    

  • URLReceiving and Routing Data in a Production (10m)

    Learn more about the interoperability features within InterSystems IRIS for Health.
    

  • URLResource Guide: Learn FHIR for Software Developers

    Explore other learning resources about FHIR.
    

  • Share Your Feedback!

  • HL7® and FHIR® are the registered trademarks of Health Level Seven International and the use of these trademarks does not constitute an endorsement by HL7.