KEYWORDS:
HL7, EDI, Connections
BACKGROUND:
The Utah Statewide Immunization Information System (USIIS) is in strong support of the HL7 standard. This standard will make it possible to connect with several types of organizations with out having multiple data sets for each organization. The first organization that USIIS has made a full production connection with is Intermountain Health Care of Utah (IHC).
OBJECTIVE(S):
To develop a real-time back-end connection with IHC for exchanging patient demographic and immunization information.
METHOD(S):
Both USIIS and IHC wanted to use HL7 as the data standard. The challenges were to ensure that the messages were all mapped correctly on both sides and the method of transmitting the data was secure. Because IHC wanted transmit and receive both patient demographic information and immunization data separately, it was necessary for us to use both the ADT message set and the Immunization message set.
RESULT(S):
The 2.X HL7 message was the version chosen for this exchange. Through testing we were able to get all the message types to match exactly. This included the creation of a new LOINC code to handle reactions for immunizations. The ADT portion of the interface went live in July of 2001 the immunization messages are scheduled to go live Aug. 2002.
CONCLUSIONS(S):
HL7 set a standard for sharing data that, if followed correctly, allows an Immunization Information System to share data with any other system using the same standard.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
To show the importance of HL7 data standards.
Back to Connect: Connections Using HL7 — Part I
Back to Contributed Papers
Back to The 2002 Immunization Registry Conference of CDC