General HL7 question

[Jason Yaworsky]

I am glad I found this great forum!

It has come to my attention that our lab vendor (scc) sends non-unique Message control numbers for ordered items that were on 1 order in the lab system but it split to send to the HIS system.   Apparently the Affinity HIS system has no problem with this.  We are currently installing the MedHost ER package and they reject these messages.  

Shouldn’t MSH-10 (message control number ) always be unique?  If not, how can acks work?    

Thanks

Topic

[Jim Kosloskey]

Jason,

You are correct – ideally the Control ID will be absolutely unique.

However in the real world it is not unusual to find some vendors that do not even send a Control ID – let alone unique.

Acknowledgments can still work (even without a Control ID – assuming the acknowledger is not sensitive to its absence) because most of the time a wait is in place for an acknowledgement – any acknowledgement -and it is not unusual for the waiting system (given the vageries of compliance with Control ID intent) to not actually assure the acknowledgment is sending back the control ID of the message sent.

All this said, you can generate your own unique Control ID for your outbound messages to the ER system making them happy. However, you will have additional challenges when trying to track a given message from its origin through the destination.

If you are interested, I have a xltp type proc which builds a unique Control ID which you can place in the Xlated message (and it allows for uniqueness across integrations as well as within a given integration.

If you want the proc, email me directly.

Jim Kosloskey

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

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