Andrew Patterson: > This was my understanding of the 'interface' used as well - I would suggest > that monitoring a directory to see when/if files disappear is a far cry > from the semantically strong application level ACK's that healthlink > imply their system implements.
> If the claim is that Healthlink only > generates an ACK when it is guaranteed that the message has been > viewed and dealt with by a clinical professional, I would imagine there > must be a much richer interface between the clinical app and healthlink > to achieve this? Hi Andrew, My understanding.... Generating application level ACKs isn't the messaging software's responsibility. When and how application level ACKs are generated is something the clinical software vendor needs to sort out - the messaging vendors role is to transport these to the intended destination reliably. For me, the questions that need to be asked are: 1. Does clinical application X create HL7 compliant messages (and if so, to which HL7 standard/s). 2. When clinical application X receives a HL7 message, does it generate a HL7 compliant ACK. 3. When clinical application X receives a HL7 message, when does it generate this ACK. 4. When clinical application X receives a HL7 message, what user-centric flags are raised (ie how does the user know the message has arrived)? (1) and (2) obviously need to be "yes" if we are going to get messages going back and forward between competing clinical packages. The end user needs to be acutely aware of (3) and (4). Regards, Simon _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
