Ontological Based Data Mediation for HL7 V2.4 to HL7 V3 Transformation

Abstract

Health Level Seven (HL7) is a standard used for the exchange of medical information between healthcare systems. The vision of HL7 is to bring interoperability in the healthcare domain. Currently two versions of HL7 are available namely HL7 Version 2 (V2) and HL7 Version 3 (V3). HL7 V2 itself has appeared in different versions which are collectively called 2.x series in which each version is backward compatible. HL7 V3 is a complete paradigm shift as compared to HL7 V2 therefore both versions are incompatible with each other. Nearly 93% of healthcare organizations use HL7 V2 in US; therefore; it is not a cost effective solution to migrate to HL7 V3 because of investment in HL7 V2. Our objective is to address semantic data mediation between HL7 V2.4 complaint sender HL7 V3 receiver. To resolve the compatibility issue between two different versions of HL7, a conversion technique has been designed which makes use of ontologies to allow HL7 V2.4 to V3 transformation. The role of ontologies in our system is to represent HL7 V2.4 and HL7 V3 domain knowledge. Mappings defined between these ontologies are stored in a mapping specification file which is used by the mediator for HL7 V2.4 to V3 transformation. These ontologies provide the advantages of reusability by importing and converting a generic ontology into domain specific ontology and also share a common understanding of the structure of information. The ontologies also help in preventing the content loss during the transformation process because they capture the semantics of the message. The system has been evaluated to ensure that the semantics are preserved during the process of HL7 V2.4 to HL7 V3 transformation. The system also minimizes user intervention by using a semi-automated approach to realize HL7 V2.4 to HL7 V3 conversion.