Diagnosis Report is sent back to HIS via HL7 usually and Images are sent back to HIS via DICOM usually if there is a DICOM Viewer integrated with HIS in hospitals ( In most of cases, Clinical Physician gets reminder of Diagnosis Report coming and then queries images from PACS Server ).

Health Level Seven ( HL7 ), is a non-profit organization involved in the development of international healthcare informatics interoperability standards.

The HL7 community is organized in the form of a global organization ( Health Level Seven, Inc .) and country-specific affiliate organizations:

* Health Level Seven, Inc. ( HL7, Inc. ) is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The organizational structure of HL7 Inc. is as follows:

The Working Group is responsible for defining the HL7 standard protocol and is composed of Standing Administrative Committees and Working Groups.

HL7, Inc. is a standards organization that was accredited in 1994 by the American National Standards Institute ( ANSI ).

HL7 is one of several American National Standards Institute accredited Standards Developing Organizations ( SDOs ) operating in the healthcare arena.

However, HL7 is now adopted by ISO as a centre of gravity in international standardization and accredited as a partnering organization for mutual issuing of standards.

The first mutually published standard is ISO / HL7 21731: 2006 Health informatics — HL7 version 3 — Reference information model — Release 1.

About 45 % of the global membership ( of either HL7 Inc. or an HL7 affiliate ) is located in Europe, 35 % in North America, 15 % in Asia-Oceania and 5 % elsewhere.

The revenue model and business plan of HL7 is discussed in HL7 Strategic Initiatives and Implementation Proposal.

However, since the earlier policy as described in the Bylaws of October 2002 placed the HL7 protocol specifications in the Public Domain, and under 17 USC § 102 there is no copyright protection for an " idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery ", this revised policy may not be enforceable.

RIM is the representation of the HL7 clinical data ( domains ) and the life cycle of messages or groups of messages.

HDF is a project to specify the processes and methodology used by all the HL7 committees for project initiation, requirements analysis, standard design, implementation, standard approval process, etc.

Currently, HL7 ’ s v2. x messaging standard is supported by every major medical information systems vendor in the United States.

The Reference Information Model ( RIM ) is the cornerstone of the HL7 Version 3 development process and an essential part of the HL7 V3 development methodology.

The HL7 Version 3 Development Framework ( HDF ) is a continuously evolving process that seeks to develop specifications that facilitate interoperability between healthcare systems.

HL7 collaborates with other standards development organizations and national and international sanctioning bodies ( e. g. ANSI and ISO ), in both the healthcare and information infrastructure domains to promote the use of supportive and compatible standards.

* Supporting communication and correspondence domestically and international for specific HL7 items ;

* Supporting domestic and international HL7 Canada meetings ;

* Providing support to domestic input on international HL7 ballot and comment items ; and

* Common Terminology Services, an HL7 ANSI standard of requirements for interoperability across disparate healthcare applications

HL7 promotes the use of such informatics standards within and among healthcare organizations to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare information delivery for the benefit of all.

HL7 collaborates with healthcare information technology users to ensure that HL7 standards meet real-world requirements, and that appropriate standards development efforts are initiated by HL7 to meet emergent requirements.

HL7 specifies a number of flexible standards, guidelines, and methodologies by which various healthcare systems can communicate with each other.

The HL7 version 3 standard has the aim to support all healthcare workflows.

The HL7 RIM, vocabulary specifications, and model-driven process of analysis and design combine to make HL7 Version 3 one methodology for development of consensus-based standards for healthcare information system interoperability.

The HL7 version 3 messaging standard defines a series of electronic messages ( called interactions ) to support all healthcare workflows.

Australia was an early adopter of the HL7 V2. x standards, which are now used ubiquitously in Australian public and private healthcare organisations.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ( ARRA ) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act ( HITECH ) legislation specified HL7 versions 2. 3. 1 and 2. 5. 1, and the HL7 Continuity of Care Document ( CCD ), as the healthcare standards to meet certain certification requirements.

The SeeBeyond ICAN suite is widely used in the healthcare industry because of its compliance with the HL7 and HIPAA standards.

HL7 and its members provide a framework ( and related standards ) for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information.

HL7 was founded in 1987 to produce a standard for hospital information systems.

* Structured Product Labeling ( SPL ) – the published information that accompanies a medicine, based on HL7 Version 3

RIM expresses the data content needed in a specific clinical or administrative context and provides an explicit representation of the semantic and lexical connections that exist between the information carried in the fields of HL7 messages.

Notable HL7 implementations currently include Prince Edward Island's drug information system ( DIS ).

AORTA uses HL7 version 3 messages and documents as its core mechanism for information exchange.

HLH basic theme is to target health care information exchange and interoperability using HL7 version 3.

HL7 ’ s initial involvement in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA ) legislation began in 1996 with the formation of the Attachments special interest group to standardize the supplemental information needed to support health care insurance, and other e-commerce transactions.

Its purpose is to encourage the use of HL7 for uniform implementation of this supplemental information.

* HL7, DICOM and other health care related information interchange standards use OIDs for globally unique identifiers for both individual information objects as well as References to code systems and data element dictionaries.

IHE Integration Profiles describe a clinical information need or workflow scenario and document how to use established standards ( e. g. HL7, DICOM, LOINC ...) to accomplish it.

In the field of Electronic health records there are a number of existing information models with overlaps in their scope which are difficult to manage, such as between HL7 V3 and SNOMED CT.