HL7 Input

Description

This step provides the ability to read data from HL7 data streams within a transformation. With the combination of the job entries HL7 MLLP Input, messages can be read from a remote server, processed by a transformation and then acknowledged by the HL7 MLLP Acknowledge job entry.

It is based on the HAPI project (HL7 application programming interface; pronounced "happy") and supports actually messages for HL7 versions up to 2.6.

Options

Property	Description
Step name	Name of the step; the name has to be unique in a single transformation.
Message field	Specifies the field name in the data stream that gets parsed.

Output fields

All output fields have fixed names and are String value types.

Fieldname	Description	Example
ParentGroup	This is the name of the root group	MFN_M01
Group	Name of the Group.	MFN_M01
HL7Version	HL7 version of the data stream	2.3
StructureName	Name of the HL7 structure	MSH
StructureNumber	Child number within structure (level)	1
FieldName	Field Description according to HL7
Coordinates	Level within each Segment: Segment.Terser.Component.SubComponent	1.1.1.1
HL7DataType	Data Types according to the HL7 specification. Note: These data types do not get mapped to Kettle data types	ST
FieldDescription	Field Description according to HL.
Value	The value of the field. Note: All values are of String type.

Note: User defined Z-Segments can be handled by this step, too. Z-Segment values are written to the data stream with an empty FieldName, a question mark ("?") for the FieldDescription and with an "UNKNOWN" HL7DataType. Due to the fact, that the Coordinates field gives the level within each Segment, these values can be analyzed according to the user defined Z-Segment definition: Segment.Terser.Component.SubComponent - Please see the samples section for more details.

Note: When you get an exception like this: Can't process message of version '2.3 MFI' - version not recognized (or similar) it is most likely that the file has LF instead of CR as segment terminators. The HL7 standard defines the segment terminator as "The segment terminator is the last character of every segment. It is always the ASCII CR character (hex 0D)." - Please see the samples section for a workaround.