HL7 ORL to email / human readible file

[lauri buijs]

Hi there,

First post on this blog !

I’m looking for a “out of the box”way to convert an HL7 2.5 ORL O21 message to an file wich can be emailed and understood by the people receiving this file. Something like an xml, csv or txt file.

Can we use the buildup of the hl7 message and convert them to the headers of the information like in an xml?

Topic

[Robert Milfajt]

At first I cringed when I read this.  Sending PHI via email!  That’s just not allowed in the US with HIPAA and all that.  However, after seeing, pardon the vernacular, that you’re not from around here, I see why you might be asking this.

As long as you don’t have security concerns about sending patient information out into the cloud, or that you have some plan to encrypt these emails, this sounds like a cool project.

Is the plan to send the patient data in the body of the email, or as an attachment to an email?

Thanks,

Bob

Robert Milfajt
Northwestern Medicine
Chicago, IL

[lauri buijs]

Hi,

I understand that this is not the proper way to communicate a lab request.

It is just a possibility that we have to make this detour before we can connect the interface in a proper way.  

The lab-department has (at this moment) no order-receiving component and may be falling behind schedule (upgrade) to connect with the new electronic patient dossier.

The email will not be send outside the hospital! It will stay between our firewalls. That being said, we have an secure email protocol, with encryption.

First I’m trying to figure out what is the best way to convert the data.

[James Cobane]

Hi Lauri,

Not sure what you mean by “out of the box way”, but Cloverleaf is a tool set that allows you to build these types of translations.  Based on your description, this could be accomplished using an HL7 to HRL, VRL, or XML translation, writing the output to a file then doing whatever you need to do to send the file via e-mail.  I would have some concerns over whether or not the HL7 has enough of the descriptive values to produce a “human readable” document; i.e. the HL7 will likely contain order codes rather than descriptions, etc.  Most ordering systems can print/fax requisitions when orders are placed; couldn’t those requisitions be printed/faxed in/to the lab?

Jim Cobane

Henry Ford Health System

[lauri buijs]

With out of the box I meant that its likely to use a translation to VRL but then I have to name and declare all the elements provided in an ORL. I would like to know if there is a better way.

In HL7 the names of elements are allready known through the hl7 standard, and most hl7 viewers also recognize the headers of the information provided.

Is it possible to convert these header-data and the HL7 message information provided to one readible file ?

But when somebody has a translation from ORL to VRL with most of the information that would be a great start 🙂

[Steve Pringle]

You could write a tcl proc that pulls the data from the message and saves it into a database (either via odbc or sqlite) with additional metadata.  Then write a report to get the data you need, and email it.  Seems better to have the data in a database vs. a flat file.

But I may not have a complete understanding of the problem.

–Steve Pringle

[David Barr]

Here are a couple scripts that I wrote a while back to create an HTML table of all the fields in a message and send it through email. It gets the field names from the Cloverleaf format file. I don’t know if this would work or not.

[lauri buijs]

that looks like what i’m looking for! I will dive into the script !

THANKS!

edit: I think I need some additional tcl scripting lessons 🙂

It doesn’t work right away, maybe a version difference? (we’re on cloverleaf 6.1.2- tcl 8.6) I will ask my collegue to assist me  😆

[Darcy Kemp]

I can pull the specific data into a VRL, can i add that VRL data to an alert, or is this in place of the alert email to send outbound directly?  Thanks.

[Darcy Kemp]

I do see that this is to send the email out directly.  I would rather find out if I can add the resulting VRL to my email alert.  Please advise.  Thanks.

[David Barr]

The code that I posted doesn’t require a VRL. You just put it on any UPOC (inbound TPS, route TPS, outbound TPS, etc.). You have to add both procs: first the dump proc then the mail proc. tps_dump_hl7 requires a TO parameter, so the args should look something like { TO name@companyname.com }. That argument is passed in the metadata to the mail proc.

[lauri buijs]

Case closed, I’m so happy with this quick and simple resolution!

After installing the extra hl7 library everything works great.

[Author]

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