Understanding HL7 Messages

What are HL7 messages?

HL7 Messages are used to transfer electronic data between disparate healthcare systems. Each HL7 message sends information about a particular event such as a patient admission.

This section describes the contents of an HL7 message and how an HL7 message is organized. The following topics are covered:

• The components of an HL7 message;
• The delimiter characters that are used to separate these components;
• How to determine the HL7 message type;
• How HL7 message segments are organized.

Here’s a fun animated video that demonstrates exactly what an HL7 message looks like:

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