HL7 segment changed by vendor…

[Walter Ericson]

I am having a problem with a vendor changing a custom segment.

The main problem is that the vendor has added fields to a custom

segment and our varient does not pass the extra fields.

For example, we built the segment to have 45 fields and the vendor makes

a change and sends 48 fields.  They do not notify us.  They do not test for

the change and weeks latter they blame us for not sending the extra

fields.

Has anyone had this problem?

Is there something we can do in the engine to check for this problem?

Any recommendations?

-Walter Ericson

St. Lukes Hospital

Topic

[David Caragay]

Walter,

You could add code to identify changes it the format and then handle the error gracefully.  However, I would rather go back to the vendor and stress to them that proper upgrade procedures need to be followed.  This means informing their customers of pending  changes and then giving them the opportunity to run some tests prior to the change being implemented.  Pretty basic stuff.  Sounds like you may need to be speaking with someone higher up the chain of command at the vendor.   I would push the vendor to fall in line and fix their enhancement/revision process.

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