HL7 3.0 Considerations for Healthcare Vendors

October 26th, 2006 by Dave Shaver

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Remember that HL7 V3’s use of XML is only 5 percent of the value of the HL7 standard.
Discuss with your clients (buyers) their needs for HL7 V3. Often users ask for V3 interfaces without an understanding of the scope of the HL7 standard or the costs incurred to implement V3.
Review the HL7 Reference Information Model (RIM) and study the explicit data model.
Compare the relationships stored in your application database with those modeled in the RIM.
If building a new application, use the RIM’s basic concepts and relationships. Early experience shows that you cannot use the exact RIM model as a database schema because performance is too slow.
Understand that almost all applications that speak HL7 V3 must also speak V2 - the installed base of V2 interfaces means that typical applications must speak both.
Review the application roles in HL7 V3 to see what additional application functionality will be needed to support V3.
Educate your users around HL7 V3 and your plans to support the V3 standard or stick only with V2 (so far a common approach.)
Understand HL7 standards and start to realize the impact it HL7 V3 will have on your application. Depending on the application, there could be many changes required to adopt V3.
Become involved in the HL7 organization – this will keep you up-to-date on the most recent developments and allow you to be part of the process.