I am implementing automated HL7v2.7 reporting of observations on a point of care device. The way this works is by sending an "ORU^R30 Unsolicited Point-Of-Care Observation Message without Existing Order - Place an Order" message to what I'm assuming will be a laboratory information system or an associated channel in an integration engine. I'm currently going to have the device ask for IP/port numbers to the LIS and MPI/their associated connections on first set-up - our device is going to communicate over TCP/LLP.
Is this the smart way to do all this? I've never worked with HL7 or any kind of HIS before.
I appreciate any possible insight. This isn't the stuff you can learn about in the standard, and I don't think I can just email Epic and ask them how they design EHR/HIS systems.
Thanks!
Message Content: ORU^R30 is not a commonly used message type, but the structure is close enough to R01 that most systems will be able to receive it. Focus on making sure you collect as much patient demographics and the visit number, or better yet scan both from the patient's wristband barcode. You must have patient and visit to file the observations.
Transmission: It's safest to just do MLLP over TCP, it will speed up your installs because that's what everybody else does. The alternative is having the health system write something custom to receive the data, usually via the interface engine.
Network: It sounds like you're thinking of putting the connection info on the device. This probably is a bad idea, I would build some kind of aggregator service that actually sends data to the EHR, that way you don't have to deal with multiple devices trying to get through firewalls, etc.