Solved: HL7 and SOA

Former Member · ‎2007 May 21

Hello all,

I was wondering to what extent the HL7 standard is used in the Healthcare solution. For example, is the electronic health record using this standard now? Are the web services interfaces using this standard?

Thanks in advance,

Best Regards,

Ezequiel

Claudius · ‎2007 May 22

Ezequiel,

I think you mention a couple of questions here. First of all, HL7 based communication with SAP Patient Management is possible using middleware (e.g. SAP XI). In regards to SOA however we feel it is important to clearly separate concerns, i.e. the "content" from the technical transmission. At least the message-oriented versions of HL7 lack this clear distinction.

So, the answer to the question "Are the web services interfaces using this standard?" is two-fold: while SAP Enterprise Services will not directly "speak" HL7, we are certainly look into such standards but more from an semantic viewpoint. For example, in contrast to the previous SAP interface technology (BAPIs), which was largely driven by the internal application object model we try to create an business driven object model for the service interfaces which conform to standards like HL7. We also feel that IHE profiles are a good source when it comes to the behavior of service operations and communication patterns as they describe concrete communication situations. In addition, we also take into account the various legal requirements of the many countries we offer SAP Patient Management and, last but not least our own integration knowledge as sometimes specific integration requirements are not subject of any existing standard yet.

The ultimate goal is to achieve a high semantic interoperability at the application and service level and leave the transmission layer to the middleware using an appropriate message protocol (which of course can be HL7).

Best regards,

Claudius

View solution in original post

Claudius · ‎2007 May 22

Ezequiel,

I think you mention a couple of questions here. First of all, HL7 based communication with SAP Patient Management is possible using middleware (e.g. SAP XI). In regards to SOA however we feel it is important to clearly separate concerns, i.e. the "content" from the technical transmission. At least the message-oriented versions of HL7 lack this clear distinction.

So, the answer to the question "Are the web services interfaces using this standard?" is two-fold: while SAP Enterprise Services will not directly "speak" HL7, we are certainly look into such standards but more from an semantic viewpoint. For example, in contrast to the previous SAP interface technology (BAPIs), which was largely driven by the internal application object model we try to create an business driven object model for the service interfaces which conform to standards like HL7. We also feel that IHE profiles are a good source when it comes to the behavior of service operations and communication patterns as they describe concrete communication situations. In addition, we also take into account the various legal requirements of the many countries we offer SAP Patient Management and, last but not least our own integration knowledge as sometimes specific integration requirements are not subject of any existing standard yet.

The ultimate goal is to achieve a high semantic interoperability at the application and service level and leave the transmission layer to the middleware using an appropriate message protocol (which of course can be HL7).

Best regards,

Claudius

Former Member · ‎2007 May 22

Claudius,

Your answer has been very helpful. Thank you very much for taking the time to reply.

Best Regards,

Ezequiel