health level seven (medical) (HL7)

Health Level Seven (HL7) provides telemedicine with an international communication standard for file formats and protocols for the exchange of medical documents between application systems. HL7 supports communication between a wide variety of healthcare institutions.

HL7 file formats have standardized content and interfaces; they are based on an object-oriented information model and an XML representation for documents and messages. HL7 documents include patient master data with patient ID, address and birth data, health insurance, primary care physician and assigned hospital ward and specialty.

HL7 is a registered trademark of Health Level Seven Inc, a registered non-profit organization engaged in the standardization of medical records and an accredited member of the American National Standards Institute, ANSI. In addition to HL7, the FHIR concept also originates from the HL7 organization. HL7 exists in the standard version and in two other versions as HL7 v2 and HL7 v3. The HL7 v2 version is a standard that supports hospital workflow. It dates back to 1987 and defines the electronic messaging format for administration, logistics, finance and hospital workflows. The first versions of HL7 v3 are from 1995 and deal with the formal methodology and framework.