HL7 Feed Specifications
Welcome to the guide for setting up Health Level 7 (HL7) feeds between your hospital's IT environment and our cloud services in Azure. This document provides a comprehensive overview for the IT departments of our client hospitals. The focus is on configuring secure VPN tunnels to facilitate the transmission of various types of medical data securely and efficiently.
Overview
HL7 is a set of international standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information. The feeds we will be setting up include:
ADT (Admissions, Discharge, and Transfer)
Lab Results
Vital Signs
Radiology Reports
Transcriptions / Notes
Medications
Each type of HL7 feed has specific message structures and requirements, which are crucial for ensuring accurate and secure data exchange. Links to detailed construction guidelines for each HL7 message type are provided in the corresponding sections below.
Prerequisites
Before setting up the HL7 feeds, ensure the following prerequisites are met:
Secure VPN Capability: The hospital network environment should support Secure VPN functionalities.
Network Configuration Details: Gather all necessary network configuration details including IP ranges, firewall settings, and encryption standards. The details of what is needed can be found here.
Step-by-Step Instructions
1. Establish the VPN Connection
It is advisable to arrange a meeting between the hospital network engineers and the Photon network team to establish and verify the VPN. This approach is more efficient and less prone to errors compared to coordinating via email.
Configure the Local VPN Gateway:
On your hospital’s network, set up a VPN device that supports IPSec connections.
Ensure that the device is configured to match the settings of the Azure VPN gateway.
Establish the Connection:
Link the Azure VPN gateway with your local VPN gateway.
Verify the connection by ensuring traffic flows securely between both networks.
2. Configuring HL7 Feeds
For each type of HL7 feed, specific configuration settings and considerations must be implemented:
Instructions for setting up the ADT feed, including specific message formats and encryption standards.
Lab Results Feed Specifications
Guidelines for the lab results feed, detailing how to handle different types of lab data.
Vital Signs Feed Specifications
Setup procedures for vital signs feed, focusing on frequency of updates and data accuracy.
Radiology Reports Feed Specifications
Detailed setup for radiology reports, including image handling and report formatting.
Transcriptions / Notes Feed Specifications
Instructions for setting up the notes feed, which may include free text and structured data.
Medications Feed Specifications
Guidelines for medications feed, detailing how to handle dosages, schedules, and medication types.
3. Testing and Validation
Conduct Integration Testing: Ensure that all feeds work correctly by sending test messages from the hospital environment to Photon.
Validate Data Integrity: Photon regularly checks that the received messages maintain integrity and match expected formats. If any irregularities or errors are found, Photon will report them to your interface specialist.
Security Testing: Perform security tests to ensure that the data transmission is secure and compliant with relevant healthcare regulations.
4. Maintenance and Monitoring
Regular Monitoring: Set up monitoring tools to continuously check the health of the VPN connection and the integrity of HL7 feeds.
Update and Patch Management: Regularly update the VPN and network devices to protect against vulnerabilities.
Troubleshooting: Establish a troubleshooting guide for common issues that might occur during the HL7 data transmission. If you already have a guide, please update to include notification of Photon of any issues or downtime.
Conclusion
By following these steps, you can establish a secure and reliable communication channel for HL7 feeds between your hospital's IT environment and our Azure cloud. Ensure to visit the detailed pages for each feed type to implement the correct message structures and configurations. This setup will support effective and secure data exchange, essential for seamless healthcare operations.
For further assistance, please contact our support team.
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