Health Level 7
Health Level 7 (HL7) is a set of international standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information. It provides a framework for healthcare data interoperability, enabling different healthcare systems to communicate and exchange clinical and administrative data. HL7 standards cover various aspects, including messaging, clinical documents, and application programming interfaces (APIs), to support seamless data flow across healthcare organizations.
Developers should learn HL7 when working on healthcare software projects, such as electronic health record (EHR) systems, health information exchanges (HIEs), or medical device integrations, to ensure compliance with industry standards and facilitate data interoperability. It is essential for building applications that need to exchange patient data, lab results, or billing information between disparate healthcare systems, helping to improve care coordination and reduce errors in clinical settings.