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Health Level Seven (HL7) is an international non-profit volunteer-based organization involved with the development of international health care informatics interoperability standards. The HL7 community consists of health care experts and information scientists collaborating to create standards for the exchange, management, and integration of electronic health care information. The term "HL7" is also used to refer to some of the specific standards created by the organization (e.g., HL7 v2.x, v3.0, HL7 RIM). HL7 and its members provide a framework (and related standards) for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information. v2.x of the standards, which support clinical practice and the management, delivery, and evaluation of health services, are the most commonly used in the world.

In total HL7 develops conceptual standards (e.g., HL7 RIM), document standards (e.g., HL7 CDA), application standards (e.g., HL7 CCOW), and messaging standards (e.g., HL7 v2.x and v3.0). Messaging standards are particularly important because they define how information is packaged and communicated from one party to another. Such standards set the language, structure, and data types required for seamless integration from one system to another. HL7 v2.x and 3.0 are the primary standards from the organization. They provide a framework for data exchange among clinical and healthcare systems in an ideal format. The 2.x standards are flexible, with several implementation options, loosely geared towards "clinical interface specialists" working to move clinical data in the application space. The 3.0 standards are designed to be more fixed, precise, and international, geared towards governments and end users of clinical applications. (Full article...)

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