NeoBrowse® for HL7: Detailed Features
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NeoBrowse simplifies the viewing, editing, and testing of HL7 messages and related TCP/IP connections. By allowing quick and in-depth testing, NeoBrowse greatly improves an HL7 analyst’s productivity and the quality of interfaces. The tool simplifies the reading, understanding, and preparation of HL7 messages, thereby accelerating the learning curve for either new or infrequent users of HL7.
NeoBrowse for HL7 provides an easy-to-use rendering of HL7 messages that makes them quick to read and understand. This ease of readability increases the productivity of both seasoned and novice HL7 analysts.
NeoBrowse provides:
- Summary view of all the messages in a file or flowing over a live TCP/IP connection – allowing a user to quickly focus on the most critical parts of a message and quickly find the “needle in the haystack” when debugging HL7 issues
- Hierarchical view of the message using extensive, automatic, built-in knowledge of HL7 – allowing the user to quickly understand the contents of an HL7 message
- Flat parse view of the message – allowing for quick viewing of all the elements of the message
- Dynamic mapping of the flat parse and the hierarchical views – allowing easy navigation via point-and-click in either view
- User-defined summary columns in the message view – allowing the user to choose the data elements that are most critical to a given HL7 search
Built-in Knowledge of HL7
NeoBrowse for HL7 contains all the commonly used versions of HL7 upon installation. This gives NeoBrowse the ability to accurately parse HL7 messages and associate them with the selected message format.
NeoBrowse for HL7 contains all the commonly-used versions of HL7 2.X as defined in the HL7 standard. This gives NeoBrowse the ability to accurately parse HL7 messages and automatically associate them with the selected message format. In addition, NeoBrowse allows you to build custom versions of HL7 that support unique vendor or site-specific message structures, including support for Z-segments.
Customizable Summary
NeoBrowse for HL7 builds a dynamic summary of all messages within a file or flowing over a TCP/IP connection. The summary allows a user to quickly view the most critical message elements across dozens or hundreds of messages. You may add and remove columns from the summary pane and store the summary configurations for later reuse.
Reusing Customized View
In addition, you can save the view so that it can be selected in the future when viewing different files.
Dynamically Select Summary View
NeoBrowse can automatically select an existing summary view format based on user-defined rules such as the version of HL7, sending application or facility, receiving application or facility, message type, and message trigger.
Searching for Information within Messages
NeoBrowse provides an extremely powerful search function to quickly find all the messages that have user-specified values.
You can perform a search for values located:
- Anywhere within the messages
- Within a specified field
- In a specified field within a specific segment or group
You can also combine search criteria into complex statements across multiple fields. The search can also be limited to fields within a specified segment or group. For example, finding an NTE attached to a certain type of OBX result.
Filtering Messages
The same powerful tool used to search messages can be used to filter messages so you can view only messages which interest you.
The messages can be filtered by values:
- Found anywhere in the message
- Found in a specified field
- Found in a specified field within a specified group
You can also combine filter criteria in order to filter for multiple values.
Editing Messages
NeoBrowse provides the ability to edit field values in messages for testing purposes. This reduces the dependence on a trading partner for sample messages. It also provides the ability to test for rare messages to ensure that the connections and message format appropriately handle all messages.
Conformance Checking
NeoBrowse provides validation of HL7 messages against the HL7 standard – this
saves time by reducing message processing errors in target applications. Messages
are checked for conformance and a validation error report provides a list of
the differences between the message data and the expected message structure.
Viewing HL7 Format Issues
In addition to the ability to perform conformance checks, NeoBrowse automatically shows the parts of the message that do not conform to the message format in the hierarchical message format pane.
Customizable Message Formats
The HL7 messaging standard was designed with flexibility so that it could meet the unique requirements of the wide variety of healthcare facilities. This flexibility means that messages from different trading partners will most often have slightly different message formats.
NeoBrowse includes all the accepted HL7 message formats including the segments, groups, and fields. It provides the ability to create a custom format for a specific trading partner by easily modifying an existing standard. This custom format can then be used when testing and viewing messages from an external healthcare provider or application.
Re-usable Message Formats
In addition to having the ability to define custom message formats, NeoBrowse saves the custom formats so they can be selected within NeoBrowse to use to view additional messages or files. Additionally, the message formats can be dynamically selected, by message, based upon user defined rules such as the HL7 version, the sending application and facility, receiving application and facility and the message type and trigger.
Testing TCP/IP Connections
Using NeoBrowse, connections can be created within minutes including the type of connection (sender or receiver), the port number, the address and even acknowledgement (ACK) management. This provides complete assurance that the application will send and receive messages from your external healthcare providers or healthcare applications.
NeoBrowse provides deep TCP/IP support for HL7’s Minimal Lower Layer Protocol (MLP or MLLP) and HL7’s real time acknowledgement environment.
NeoBrowse allows the user to select the dynamic behavior of each connection to control message resends, ACK types, etc.
About NeoTool
NeoTool is a leading provider of healthcare integration solutions that empower organizations to develop, test, deploy, and manage data exchanges between healthcare applications and providers. Through software, training, and consulting, NeoTool is the largest firm dedicated solely to HL7 and healthcare application interfacing. NeoTool customers include healthcare providers (e.g., hospitals, imaging centers, labs, and clinics) and healthcare software application providers and medical device manufacturers.