Convert HL7 to text

[Gena Gill]

I need to get a document out of our transcription system in a flat .txt format.  The documents come out as MDM message types with the full text of the document itself in OBX 5.

I’d like to take that OBX 5 field and convert it to a readable text document that I can then upload into a system that does not accept HL7 transactions, but I really don’t know where to start.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Topic

[Daniel Lee]

You could write a tcl proc that takes whatever is in the OBX-5 and writes it to a flat file using the patient account number and the document number as the file name.

If you want someone else to upload these documents then I’d write them to a file share instead of on your interface engine server.

[Jim Kosloskey]

Gina,

Perhaps the outbound can be described as a VRL or HRL.

In that case simply Xlate from HL/7 to the VRL or HRL and make your outbound thread Fileset protocol.

email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.

[Josh Deere]

Here’s some pseudo-code to do what you’re looking for:

# assuming ‘mrn’ = patient id and ‘duid’ = document id

set fn “/path/to/file/${mrn}_${duid}.txt”
set fp [open $fn w]

# assuming ‘segs’ is a list containing all segments from msg

foreach _seg $segs {
[code]# assuming ‘mrn’ = patient id and ‘duid’ = document id

set fn “/path/to/file/${mrn}_${duid}.txt”
set fp [open $fn w]

# assuming ‘segs’ is a list containing all segments from msg

foreach _seg $segs {

[Gena Gill]

The documents are plain text.

Based on a couple of conversations with Jim, I’ve been using FRL and then the HRL to account for the repeating subfield, and then rounded it all out with a translation and have made some progress.  

So far, I’ve been able to get the document into 1 of 2 states:

1)  the entire report on one line — this happens when I don’t use a line feed in the FRL

2)  one line per page, so a 50 line report is 50 pages long — this happens when I do use a line feed in the FRL

[Author]

Replies