What is Health Level 7 (HL7)?
Just as people from different countries with completely different native tongues are only able to communicate with each other if they can speak a common language, computer applications can only share information if they communicate with a common protocol. For people or computers to be able to share clinical data with one another, they must both: • have functions to be able to physically communicate, e.g. speak & hear, send and receive documents and data files, share data and information. This is called “functional interoperability”. • speak a common language (in terms of nouns, verbs, grammatical structure, etc.) and share the same vocabulary that allows them to understand complex medical conditions and processes. This is called “semantic interoperability”.A group of healthcare computer systems users started developing the HL7 protocol in 1987 to create a common “language” that allows healthcare applications to share clinical data with each another. Over time the HL7 interoperability p
Just as people from different countries with completely different native tongues are only able to communicate with each other if they can speak a common language, computer applications can only share information if they communicate with a common protocol. For people or computers to be able to share clinical data with one another, they must both: • have functions to be able to physically communicate, e.g. speak & hear, send and receive documents and data files, share data and information. This is called “functional interoperability”. • speak a common language (in terms of nouns, verbs, grammatical structure, etc.) and share the same vocabulary that allows them to understand complex medical conditions and processes. This is called “semantic interoperability”.A group of healthcare computer systems users started developing the HL7 protocol in 1987 to create a common “language” that allows healthcare applications to share clinical data with each another. Over time the HL7 interoperability p
