HL7Connect is a utility that is known as a Messaging Interface Engine or Messaging Gateway. A Gateway provides a central point for HL7 messaging.

Recall the earlier example, where the PAS needs to broadcast a patient admission to all the departmental systems (pathology, pharmacy etc.) in the hospital. Even if all the departmental systems "talk" in HL7, the PAS will still need to keep track of several conversations at the same time. And beyond the PAS, most hospitals will have several systems communicating HL7. The "web" of HL7 messaging may look something like Figure 1 below:

Figure 1 - No HL7 Message Interface Engine

Whilst it is fantastic that all these systems are able to exchange information in HL7 format, such a scenario is quite a challenge for IT departments to monitor and administer, and can place a significant processing load on systems that maintain several HL7 message queues.

Using a HL7 Interface Engine such as HL7Connect, the scenario above could reconfigured as shown below in Figure 2:

Figure 2 - Utilizing an HL7 Message Interface Engine

Benefits of Messaging Interface Engines

Using an Interface Engine such as HL7Connect for HL7 message routing provides a number of benefits:

• System Independence - By routing messaging through an interface engine systems no longer have to interact with one another, minimizing the impact of system failures.
• Reduced load on Patient Administration System (PAS) due to the single ADT feed broadcast by the PAS. This has removed the need for the PAS to monitor multiple different message queues.
• Streamlined, simplified administration via the Interface Engine - Administration staff have a centralized point to monitor to ensure that all messaging is working.
• Troubleshooting of problems. A messaging interface engine such as HL7Connect should provide good logging and troubleshooting tools to resolve messaging issues.
• Store and forward - as well as passing the messages between systems, an Interface Engine can store the messages within a database, so they can be re-sent if required.

How else can HL7Connect Help with HL7 messaging?

While HL7 messaging is a big step forward in communication between systems, the implementation of HL7 messaging is not always as straight forward. There are several issues that can hinder implementation of HL7 messaging between systems. A couple of these issues and how HL7Connect can help are discussed following.

HL7 is an evolving standard. HL7 Inc. coordinates volunteers from around the world working on continual review and development of the HL7 standard. As a result new versions of the HL7 standard are released every couple of years. Vendors and systems will implement the new versions at different times. The differences between the versions can be significant, which means that a system that "talks" HL7 v2.1 won’t be able to understand messages sent from a system that "talks" HL7 v2.3.1.

HL7Connect provides a means for translating between HL7 versions to enable systems using different version of HL7 to exchange messages.

Vocabulary refers to the codes or identifiers used to relay information such as religion, country, financial classification etc. It is likely that systems wanting to exchange information may have used different code or vocabulary sets, for instance AU = Australia or AUS = Australia. HL7Connect can be used to translate from one code set to another, to assist in the exchange of information between systems.

It may be the case that not all the messages broadcast from one system are needed by the receiving system. HL7Connect can be configured to review message content and forward only the relevant messages.