HL7 Integration to Practice Management Software
What is Health Level 7 (HL7)?
“HL7” is a term used to refer to the all-volunteer, not-for-profit organization, Health Level Seven, Inc., that is involved in development of international healthcare standards. Health Level Seven is a Standards Developing Organization (SDO) that is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Founded in 1987 to produce a standard for hospital information systems, HL7 is currently the selected standard for the interfacing of clinical data in most institutions. HL7 and its members are dedicated to providing a comprehensive framework for the exchange, integration, sharing and retrieval of electronic health information. The standards, which support clinical practice and the management, delivery, and evaluation of health services, are the most commonly used in the world. HL7 has saved time, effort, and money as institutions interface.
A frequent misconception about HL7 is that the group develops software. In fact, HL7’s primary mission is to create flexible, low-cost standards, guidelines, and methodologies to enable the exchange and interoperability of electronic health records. Such guidelines or data standards are an agreed upon set of rules that allow information to be shared and processed in a uniform and consistent manner. Without data standards, healthcare organizations could not readily share clinical information. Theoretically, this ability to exchange information should help to minimize the tendency for medical care to be so geographically isolated and highly variable.
What is HL7’s involvement with HIPAA?
HL7’s initial involvement in the HIPAA legislation began in 1996 with the formation of the Attachments Special Interest Group to standardize the supplemental information needed to support health care insurance, and other e-commerce transactions. The initial deliverable of this group was six recommended Claims Attachments for the Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) process. Future attachment projects include, but are not limited to, Home Health, Skilled Nursing Facility, Durable Medical Equipment (DME), End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), and Pre-Authorization and Referrals.
The Attachment special interest group has the responsibility for the implementation of the Administrative Simplification provisions of HIPAA mandates, providing on-going support, and representing HL7 in the HIPAA Designated Standards Maintenance Organization (DSMO)efforts. Its purpose is to encourage the use of HL7 for uniform implementation of this supplemental information. This SIG coordinates industry input to produce and maintain guides for HL7 messages that can stand alone or be embedded within ASC X12N transactions.
What does this have to do with eMedRec and your medical practice?
eMedRec is HL7 compliant and as such is able to share data with compliant Practice Management Software (PMS). This allows information that is entered into the PMS to be shared with eMedRec. The patient's name, address, insurance, birth date and other information that is entered into the PMS is seen within eMedRec and is utilized for the completion of patient forms and maintaining data continuity between the software programs.
Most major Labs, Insurance companies, and PMS providers comply with HIPAA and HL7 standards to assure compatibility. If for some reason the practice's preferred PMS is not HL7 compliant, in all likelihood it has some type of database structure that will be compatible with eMedRec for the sharing of data.
"Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success."