Re: [MT-L] MAGIC NPR: report to mimic an HL7 message for a lab result
Richard Clark
We are C/S 5.6 Focus 6.04 PP20.
NPR is not the way to go about this. See the post from Gail. She is on
the right track. You really have to have a certified interface from the
lab results feed. Meditech will sell you one, though they are proud of
them and they are expensive.
The reason developing or getting one someone else developed will be
problematic is because Meditech in all its many flavors is a parameter
driven system. So what works at one installation will be different at
another installation. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the Lab.
I have designed, developed and deployed lab systems back in the day when
departmental systems were common. Lab has so many specialized values
that are critical to the Physician's understanding and care plans. These
values change based on population and groups. Now with the integrated
systems, it is becoming almost impossible for anyone other than Meditech
to produce a coherent result out of the Meditech Lab Modules. You can
get close for most tests, but it would be a major development effort to
get a full HL7 feed from NPR reports. Note that it would be at least 6
reports, not one.
If you were only wanting one test, or group of tests, it might be
possible. But if you include all the areas, it would be almost if not
impossible. Also, think about critical and panic values, lab send-outs,
and age specific results. Very, very, complex.
As Gail mentioned, the correct solution in this case is not to re-invent
the wheel. If you already have an interface engine, and you already have
lab results going to it, then it is a small change to output the message
stream to a holding folder and even to filter that stream to only
forward the one practice's patients. These files, one per result, then
could be combined by day and sent on, or just moved to the network share
as is. We are doing this in ITS for our Radiology folks. We use Iatrics
engine and are happy with it for the most part. Summit is good.
Corepoint is good. Any of them should allow you to siphon off what you
need.
I have over 15 years experience in writing HL7 interfaces. I have
developed them from scratch using both mainframe and PC languages. It is
not for the faint hearted. We did develop an ADT NPR interface for
GroupCast, but that is a simple interface in comparison to Lab Results.
If you do not have and cannot get an interface engine and MT Lab result
interface, then you need to think about using standard lab reports as
the input instead of trying to program your own. Most of the results
interfaces are contained in the OBR and OBX segments. You can download a
regular report, and generate the ADT portions of the HL7 file
(msh/pid/pv1/dg1 etc..) from NPR, and then chop up the standard report
into ORC/OBR/OBX segments. It would work, but be clunky, and I don't
know if updates would work very well. Formatting might also be an issue.
If you feel you must develop an NPR HL7 feed, then you need to look at
doing all of your coding in a Macro. I have not coded Magic so I don't
know what that is like, but in C/S, we write the actual transformation
code and send to buffer in a Macro and only use the NPR side for indexes
and program flow. Good luck!
Richard L. Clark
Systems Analyst
White River Health System
1710 Harrison
Batesville, AR 72501
E-mail: rcl...@wrmc.com
Office: 870-262-1387
Cell: 870-307-1265
Pager: 787
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Purvins, James A.
for the faint of heart.
I do remember writing an NPR interface from Meditech to what used to be
called Practice Partners Physician system back in 1996 or so. Granted,
it wasn't a pure HL7 feed but combining Meditech Lab Format Report
dictionaries and some advanced macro programming and such, we did
implement a useful feed to the system for physicians to lookup Lab
results in their Practice Management system.
It all depends how flexible the other system is and how advanced your
inhouse programming team is to impelement these sort of interfaces.
If I would be looking to outsource that data feed, I would definitely be
looking at an HL7 system and not a home grown interface feed.
Obviously, for maintenance purposes, its always easier to maintain that
knowledge base and not on an analyst that developed the system years ago
and is no longer with your organization.
I do hope that with time, Meditech develops the 6.0 software to make
external data feeds possible using their software.
Okay, wake up Jim and stop that pipe dream !
:o)
James Purvins
Inland Northwest Health Services
(509) 232-8384
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