HL7 translation question regarding field length

[Mike Campbell]

Just completed Level 1 training last week.  A new interface is taking RDE messages from source to destination.  Both sides HL7.  The inbound PID-2 is sent with leading zeros removed.  How can I check the length of the field to insure it is 7 in length on the outbound side, padding with zeros if shorter?

Thanks.

Topic

[Gary Atkinson]

Use ~ in front of your inbound and check in an IF statement.  There is some len logic built into the IF command.  Add another IF with tcl proc to pad in the zeros if length is less than 7.

[James Cobane]

On your COPY command, you can simply add a tcl statement (in the proc window) to format the MRN with leading zeros:

   set xlateOutVals

]]

If the number coming in is 1234, it will be sent out as 0001234.

Hope this helps.

Jim Cobane

Henry Ford Health

[Sam Craig]

Or, in the xlate, use a field copy with a Pre TCL Proc with code similar to this ……

set pid2_in [lindex $xlateInVals 0]

set xlateOutVals [format “%07s” $pid2_in]

This will always make the field 7 characters long and pad with zeroes if needed.

[Author]

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