Kestral Computing Pty Ltd was established in 1989, to provide software and information solutions to the Health Care industry.
Over the last 15 years, Kestral has grown steadily due to it's innovative, and reliable solutions to industry problems and needs, and recruits staff from both Health (diagnostic and clinical) and Information Technology backgrounds.
With an experienced and enthusiastic staff of developers, technical support and managers, Kestral has the background and experience to develop, implement and support, novel and reliable solutions for new and established clients.
Kestral have a wealth of HL7 expertise, and have been an Organizational Member of HL7 since 1994.
Our expertise includes three certified HL7 Control Specialists, with one being a co-chair of the HL7 Control/Query Technical Committee, editor of the HL7 version 2 and version 3 data types and editor of the UML Implementation Technology Specification - Data Types.
With such close and continuing ties to the Health Care industry, Kestral noticed the frustration felt by IT staff and Software Vendors, who were finding the logistics of HL7 messaging challenging. Kestral set out to make working with HL7 easier by developing HL7Connect.
Traditionally, HL7 Messaging has been managed and administered either manually via direct connections from system to system or with the implementation of a HL7 interface engine or "gateway". However the existing commercial HL7 gateway products were often complex and too expensive for smaller hospitals or private practices to implement.
Kestral therefore had to design a system that was economical to implement, and even more importantly, easy to configure and use.
Kestral developed HL7Connect as a simple, straightforward HL7 interface engine, with the following features:
- HL7Connect can be implemented on a standard NT workstation
- HL7Connect can use multiple database platforms, ranging from commercial databases to freeware, to suit the budget of any Health Organization
- HL7Connect is able to send and receive HL7 messages using a number of different types of transport layers
- Scripting support for the translation and manipulation of HL7 messages
During the development of HL7Connect, Kestral realized that sometimes there is a need to do more than just store, forward or resend HL7 messages. We found that, on occasion, there is a requirement to translate one version of HL7 into another, or, in order to support custom applications, it is sometimes necessary to convert HL7 messages to suit the custom application, and vice versa.
Using this insight as a guideline, scripting support in multiple script languages was incorporated into HL7Connect. As an accompaniment to HL7Connect, Kestral developed the HL7Connect Development Environment to assist in working with scripts. The HL7Connect Development Environment provides a simple way for developers and administrators to work with HL7 messages, to create and debug scripts and to perform manipulations on interfaces and HL7 messages.