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• Getting Started with HL7 Version 3 and BizTalk Server 2006 (R2)

  After a long gestation period we have finally published the HL7 v3 and BizTalk whitepaper: Getting Started with HL7 v3 and BizTalk Server 2006 This paper provides developers with an overview of HL7 version 3 Messaging (HL7 v3) concepts, how to build HL7 v3 solutions with Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006, and how to convert message format from HL7 v3 to HL7 Version 2 Messaging (HL7 v2). Given all the different nuances of HL7 v3, it is somewhat difficult for Microsoft to build a "product", but we're definitely committed to supporting the development of solutions based on HL7 v3 messaging standard on the Microsoft platform. Over the past years we worked very closely with HL7 to make sure that XML best practices and Web Services were included in the development of the standard and at the same time that the Microsoft platform would support HL7's artifacts. The whitepaper analyzes a typical workflow and the steps that are required to make everything work like it should. We have many customers and partners that contributed to the experience that led to the development of this paper. While the paper is by no means meant to be all-encompassing, it definitely gives a good idea and starting point. The scenario that we selected for HL7 v2/v3 interop is based on the IHE ITI Patient Identity Feed transactions for HL7 v2 and HL7 v3. This whitepaper comes with sample code for BizTalk 2006 R2 and the version 2.0 of the BizTalk Accelerator for HL7. If you have not seen it, there is a nice complement to this paper that examines the development of HL7 v2 solutions (although based on v1.3 of the Accelerator for HL7). Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2007 3:47 PM from The Healthcare IT Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: BizTalk, Healthcare Integration, HL7, HL7v2, HL7v3, IHE

• Health Connection Engine Whitepapers Now LIVE!

  We just published two (2) Health Connection Engine whitepapers: Introduction to The Microsoft Health Connection Engine: This whitepaper provides an overview of the Health Connection Engine (HCE), including the major concepts and the service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles applied within HCE. The paper also discusses possible use scenarios for the HCE from an architectural perspective, highlighting how HCE components and connected systems can be deployed in different combinations to match each scenario. This paper is intended to be read by an architect charged with the definition and implementation of integration solutions within a healthcare domain (XPS, PDF). Developing a Health Connection Engine (HCE) Adapter: This whitepaper provides an introduction to the design and development of HCE Adapters. These adapters are responsible for connecting Service Providers to a HCE-enabled healthcare integration solution. They are an integral part of the Health Connection Engine and leverage the code-base defined within the HCE Adapter Development Kit. The whitepaper outlines the major HCE Adapter concepts and provides a walkthrough of the steps required to implement a HCE Adapter as a Microsoft .NET Web service. (XPS, PDF) The whitepapers are a complement to the HCE documentation available on CodePlex and should make it easier to understand and adopt. Let us know what you think! Posted Tuesday, September 04, 2007 8:57 PM from The Healthcare IT Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: HCE, Health Information Networks, Healthcare Integration

• MS-HUG TechForum - BizTalk Accelerator for HL7

  Straight from the horse's mouth, Stuart Landrum, Program Manager for the BizTalk Accelerators gave an overview of the new features for the Accelerator for HL7 2.0(A4HL7) in BizTalk 2006 R2. Here they are: New Accelerator Licensing! Support for HL7 v2.5 Support of international characters Support for ordered messaging Enhanced MLLP persistent connection management HL7 Schema Generation Tool BizTalk Mapper behavior enhancements: HL7 v2: Preserving the Order When Mapping a Repeating Sequence Group HL7 v3: Accommodating Schemas with Large Footprints Licensing A little piece of information that might have gone unnoticed is that with the R2 release of BizTalk, all the Accelerators (HL7, HIPAA, Swift, RosettaNet) are going to be free and included in the box! Yes, read again, free. This added to the new licensing models for partners makes the adoption of BizTalk a no-brainer. Support for HL7 v2.5 We have included support for v2.5 of the HL7 Messaging standard. Support for v2.5.1 that just came out of HL7 is not included as it did not make the cut in time. For people in a hurry to implement 2.5.1 there is still hope, keep reading. International Characters In version 2.0 of the A4HL7 we have extended support for international characters: 8859/1, 8859/2, 8859/3, 8859/4, 8859/5, 8859/6, 8859/7, 8859/8, 8859/9, ASCII and UNICODE (single, double, and 3-byte UNICODE character sets)except for JAS2020 and JIS X 0202 which are Japanese character sets with non-standard UNICODE encoding. Support for Ordered Messaging We have extended the support for ordered messaging already present in BizTalk 2006 to the MLLP adapter in v2.0 of the A4HL7. In addition to this support we are also releasing a whitepaper for more complex scenarios based on the concept of Ticket Dispenser and Gatekeeper. Enhanced MLLP Connection Management One of the funny things about MLLP is that it is sooo simple, yet pretty much everyone out there has a different take on how it should be implemented. We have added functionality to more finely tune how connection management is handled in MLLP. HL7 Schema Generation Tool I have talked about this before and there is not a lot to add. The tool allows you to implement versions of HL7 v2.x that we have not included in the box (hint, hint) by working directly with the models that are stored in the Microsoft Access database that is published by HL7. BizTalk Mapper Enhancements In order to address the issues with mapping HL7 v2 messages we have added a flag to the map file that will add additional logic to the XSLT generated by the Mapper to prevent the order of the HL7 segments from changing. The other couple of issues that we addressed with the Mapper are more related to HL7 Version 3 and deal with the complexities of those schemas. For full details on the changes have a look at Stuart's presentation on my SkyDrive: Note: for details on how to get XPS working on your system, check my previous post. Posted Wednesday, August 22, 2007 12:54 PM from The Healthcare IT Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: BizTalk, Events, Healthcare Integration, HL7, HL7v2, MS-HUG

• Health Connection Engine 2.1.1 Released to CodePlex

  We have released version 2.1.1 of the Health Connection Engine to CodePlex. The release addresses a few issues we identified in setup and the Deployment Guide and some security and performance warning raised by FxCop. From the project description: "The Health Connection Engine facilitates the interoperability between these multiple systems by abstracting the interfaces used to connect them and by providing a rich and extensible adapter framework." As usual we welcome any feedback you might have on HCE. We're thinking about the next version and the two topics that came up in our heads are support for WCF and integration with the Microsoft ESB Guidance. What do you think? Posted Thursday, June 14, 2007 2:50 PM from The Healthcare IT Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: BizTalk, CHF, HCE, Healthcare Integration, SOA

• Summary Report for NHIN Prototypes

  If you pay any attention to what's happening in the U.S. around the National Health Information Network (NHIN) you certainly have seen that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has posted another RFP for more prototypes to test what was done last year in the 4 prototypes and in HITSP. At the same time they are making available a Summary Report on NHIN Prototype Architectures. As you probably also know (in case you don't I'm telling you now), Microsoft was part of the CSC/Connecting for Health (the U.S. one) consortium. I have talked about this in the past here and here If you did not have any plans for the weekend, now you do :-) Posted Friday, June 08, 2007 8:02 PM from The Healthcare IT Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: Health Information Networks, Healthcare Integration, NHIN

• Eric Blogs on BizTalk and HL7 v2

  I just came across Eric's Blog about BizTalk and the HL7 Accelerator. A great resource for those of you implementing HL7 v2 on the Microsoft platform. Posted Saturday, July 22, 2006 6:01 AM from The Healthcare IT Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: BizTalk, Healthcare Integration

• Advancing Cyber Security with .NET

  This is some great work on federated security in healthcare done by several researchers at the University of Virginia, dept. of Computer Science (full disclosure: Microsoft funded some of the papers). The "Papers and Presentations" section has a lot great articles, tutorial and demos on the topic of federated security in healthcare using Web Services and the federation standards. If you have anything to do with Healthcare Information Exchanges across multiple organizations in a highly distributed environment, you should defititely check them out. Posted Monday, May 01, 2006 12:43 PM from The Healthcare IT Blog | 0 Comments Filed under: Healthcare Integration, Standards