HL-7 was created to, “simplify the implementation of interfaces between healthcare software applications and various vendors so as to reduce the pain and cost involved in custom interface programming.”
Collegeville, PA (PRWEB) June 30, 2012
Of all the challenges that medical practices are faced with during the conversion to electronic health records (EHR), interfacing the EHR application to the numerous labs, PACS, hospitals, and patient portals can be an overwhelming and costly task. For a large medical enterprise with multiple locations, practices and providers the costs of these interfaces may be crippling to an already strained IT budget. In the process of setting up these interfaces, the staff member in charge of setting up these interfaces is faced with initiating contact with a sales representative, gathering all the pertinent information, ensuring that the IT infrastructure is capable of handling the interface, relaying coding information between both parties technical staff, and troubleshooting the interface to ensure that the data is being transmitted, received, and accepted into the EHR application where the providers will access the data, none the wiser to the efforts involved.
Practices have other options besides interfacing their EHR, there is also integration. The differences between integration and interfacing are explained in an article from healthtechnica.com. It is hard to “simply” state with the difference is, but it more or less comes down to the types of data being sent and whether or not the operating systems between medical practice and vendor are unified. The article states that integration is a “simpler and less expensive process,” but that “the format of the data to be shared must be consistent.” The pros and cons of integration and interfacing are pretty equal, and to a medical practice who just wants to see data and images in their EHR application, it may seem like a choice between a headache and a stomachache.
The team at DataTrade Solutions has developed a platform known as Health IT Connect that offers a one channel interface between the medical practice and all possible vendors. Health IT Connect was designed to alleviate the costs and efforts of medical practices by providing a one stop solution for every interface a practice may need. DataTrade Solutions provides its clients with the server and coordinates the programming languages between the EHR application and the vendor’s system with HL-7 messages.
HL-7 is the industry standard for programming language, and this type of program coding is what allows different medical systems to communicate with each other. According to a fortherecordmag.com, HL-7 was created to, “simplify the implementation of interfaces between healthcare software applications and various vendors so as to reduce the pain and cost involved in custom interface programming.” So by using this type of programming code, interfacing a medical practice’s EHR application is a standardized process which makes a programmer’s life a little bit easier.
For more information about HL-7 codes, EHR application interfaces, Health IT Connect or any of the DataTrade Solutions applications, utilities, and services, visit http://www.datatradesolutions.com or contact Adam Rantz, Project Coordinator, at arantz(at)datatradesolutions(dot)com.
About DataTrade Solutions, Inc
Located in Collegeville, PA, DataTrade Solutions is a provider of full life-cycle EHR solutions currently supporting over 1000 physicians across the United States through assessment, customization, implementation and support of IT systems.
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