ELI5: Health Level 7 (HL7) Standards

HL7 consists of a series of standards that specifies standards, methodologies, and guidelines for interoperability in healthcare systems

• HL7 V3
• HL7 v2.x
• Arden Syntax
• Clinical Context Object Workgroup (CCOW)
• Clinical Document Architecture (CDA)
• Electronic Health Record (EHR) / Personal Health Record (PHR)
• Structured Product Labeling (SPL)

Reference Information Model

Reference Information Model (RIM)

http://www.hl7.org/implement/standards/rim.cfm

eXtensible Markup Language

HL7 V3

HL7 V2.x

Choosing Between HL7 V3 and V2.x

• Benefits: “looser” guidelines, can be build in an ad-hoc fashion, backwards compatible between other V2 versions
• Drawbacks: loose guidelines can lead to discrepancies, lacking consistency in application data models, vendors may not have updated to latest version of V2.x yet, not compatible with V3
• Benefits: Standards are stricter and more consistent, guidelines are clear and concise with less “wiggle room”
• Drawbacks: Not compatible with V2.x, cost, training and resources needed for adoption, will still need to concurrently maintain any V2 systems

messaging standards

 Arden Syntax

Clinical Context Object Workgroup (CCOW)

Clinical Document Architecture (CDA)

• Persistence
• Stewardship
• Potential for Authentication
• Context
• Wholeness
• Human Readability

Electronic Health Record - System (EHR-S) Functional Model (FM)

Structured Product Labeling (SPL)