The HL7 2.X message standard has multiple chapters that provide the general rules by which HL7 compliant applications should communicate. The chapter layout came about in the beginning of HL7 based on the committees structure used to create the standard.
In the early days of the HL7 standard – 2.3 and before – the standard itself was a bit inconsistent. That is, parts of the HL7 standard had typos or obvious conflicts. Later releases of HL7 cleaned up these problems and, generally, the chapters now agree with each other.
Outlined below is a list of the major chapters of the HL7 standard; this is helpful when someone says, “The PID segment is defined in Chapter Three.”
BTW, are you looking to gain an overview of HL7? If so, visit the Corepoint Health Resource Center for white papers, recorded HL7 insights, etc. or attend an HL7 Training Class either on-line or in-person.
Chapter Name | Content |
1 – Introduction | Overview of HL7. |
2 – Control | Message Definitions, Interchange Protocols. |
3 – Patient Administration | Admit, Discharge, Transfer, and Demographics. |
4 – Order Entry | Orders for Clinical Services and Observations, Pharmacy, Dietary, and Supplies. |
5 – Query | Rules applying to queries and to their responses. |
6 – Financial Mgmt | Patient Accounting and Charges. |
7 – Observation Reporting | Observation Report Messages. |
8 – Master Files | Health Care Application Master Files. |
9 – Medical Records/ Information Mgmt | Document Management Services and Resources. |
10 – Scheduling | Appointment Scheduling and Resources. |
11 – Patient Referral | Primary Care Referral Messages. |
12 – Patient Care | Problem-Oriented Records. |
13 – Laboratory Automation | Equipment status, specimen status, equipment inventory, equipment comment, equipment response, equipment notification, equipment test code settings, equipment logs/service. |
14 – Application Management | Application control-level requests, transmission of application management information. |
15 – Personnel Management | Professional affiliations, educational details, language detail, practitioner organization unit, practitioner detail, staff identification. |
Appendix A- Data Definition Tables | All HL7 and User-defined tables and their values. |
Appendix B- Lower Layer Protocols | Protocols for lower layer of OSI model. |
Appendix C-BNF Message Descriptions | BNF representations of abstract message definitions at the segment level. |
Appendix D-Glossary | Glossary of terms. |
Visit the Corepoint Health HL7 Resources page for additional information.
Latest posts by Dave Shaver (see all)
- HL7 ADT Q&A with Dave Shaver - July 2, 2014
- Health Standards Community Membership Archetypes: Who uses HL7? - August 6, 2013
- Note from the Field: Meditech 6.0 HL7 Integration - September 6, 2011