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The Chapters of the HL7 Standard

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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.

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Dave Shaver

Dave Shaver is the CTO for Corepoint Health. Dave has more than 20 years experience in training, consulting, and software development. He’s deeply involved in the HL7 standards community, including co-chair of HL7 Infrastructure and Messaging committee and co-chair of the HL7 FHIR Governance Board.