HL7 has now organized its courses into four tracks to make it easier to choose the educational offerings that are right for you:
HL7 Version 2 is the world’s most successful healthcare interoperability standard. Originally developed in the late 1980s, it has been continually enhanced ever since. The introductory tutorials familiarize students with the Version 2 standard and its core domain areas, while the implementation classes provide the “how to” basics of implementation. The track also includes courses that cover conformance and profiles and XML for Version 2.
Courses on this track:
HL7 Version 3 is HL7’s new flagship standard, adopted by major healthcare organizations, such as the NHS in England. This track covers Version 3 messaging fundamentals, including the Reference Information Model (RIM) and Refined Message Implementation Models (RMIM), Clinical Document Architecture (CDA), the Clinical Statement pattern, Transport protocols, wrappers and XML implementations.
Courses on this track:
HL7 has developed an important group of standards, which do not fall into either V2 or V3 groups. These include Electronic Health Records (EHR), standards for visual integration (CCOW), Security and Arden Syntax.
Courses on this track:
HL7 works closely with other important standards organizations and is always monitoring relevant innovations. This track covers standards such as UML, XML, SNOMED CT and OWL which are used by HL7 standards.
Courses on this track:
These tracks are only suggested course groupings. Feel free to choose whatever courses you feel are right for you from among the four tracks.
This document contains tutorial descriptions.
Sunday: 5 - 4:45 PM
HL7 will offer a special orientation session for first-time attendees. This 45 minute session will give those new to HL7 the lay of the land and help make sure they get the very most out of their first working group meeting experience. The session will consist of a quick meeting “tour” and a question and answer session that will help attendees make informed choices and maximize their time at the meeting. The session will be offered twice during the meeting— once on Sunday evening and again on Monday morning.
Those new to HL7
Sunday: 6 - 7:30 pm
This tutorial provides a brief history of the HL7 Organization and answers the question “What is HL7.” An overview of the current committee structure and content domains will presented. Attendees will learn the formal committee process and protocol and how to effectively participate in the work of the committees. This tutorial has been added at the request of First Time Attendees seeking to gain deeper knowledge of the organization and its work processes.
“Apprentice” HL7 attendees, e.g. attending less than one year
The History of the HL7 organization and basic concept of “What Is HL7?”, the general processes under which HL7 committees work, how to contribute to the work, and an understanding of formal committee decision-making protocol
Recommend attending the First Time Attendee session and reviewing information on the First Time Attendee website: www.HL7.org/Firsttime
John Quinn: Technical Committee Chair, HL7 Board of Directors; Principal, Accenture
Freida Hall: HL7 Board of Directors; Co-Chair, HL7 Process Improvement Committee
Monday: 07:30 - 08:15 am
HL7 will offer a special orientation session for firsttime attendees. This 45 minute session will give those new to HL7 the lay of the land and help make sure they get the very most out of their first working group meeting experience. The session will consist of a quick meeting "tour" and a question and answer session that will help attendees make informed choices and maximize their time at the meeting. The session will be offered twice during the meeting — once on Sunday evening and again on Monday morning.
Monday: 09:00 am -12:30 pm
This tutorial introduces students to HL7 and the basic concepts of Version 2. It covers some of the standard's fundamental chapters including Control, Patient Administration, Order Entry and Results Reporting.
Those new to HL7
Mike Henderson: Principal Consultant, Eastern Informatics
Monday: 09:00 am -12:30 pm
Introduction to Version 3 Part 1 is a rigorous introduction to HL7's newly emerging messaging standard.
Included in the class are:
Virginia Lorenzi: Senior Technical Specialist, FCG Management Services at New York Presbyterian
Monday: 9:00 am - 12:30 pm
The HL7 clinical statement pattern is one of the keys to interoperable communication of clinical information. The clinical statement pattern is the semantic foundation for structured clinical information in the Clinical Document Architecture (release 2) and in many Version 3 messages. Development and refinement of the pattern is continuing in the Clinical Statements Project. This project has a close relationship with the HL7 TermInfo Project which is addressing the gaps and overlaps between the clinical statement pattern and external terminology models, including SNOMED Clinical Terms. The tutorial provides an introduction to the clinical statement pattern and the issues of semantic interoperability that it addresses. The first session describes the requirements and challenges posed by clinical semantic interoperability. It continues by summarizing the evolution of the clinical statement pattern and explaining how the pattern is expressed as part of HL7 Version 3. The second session explains the clinical statement model, how it interacts with clinical terminologies and issues currently under consideration. The tutorial includes an update on progress toward adoption of the Clinical Statement Pattern and TermInfo Guidance as HL7 standards.
Anyone needing to understand how HL7 Version 3 supports communication of clinical information in ways that enable effective retrieval and processing.
It would be useful for students to have some prior knowledge of the HL7 Version 3 Reference Information Model (RIM) and development method. An understanding of clinical information and clinical terminologies would also be helpful but not essential.
David Markwell : Past Chair, HL7 UK; Co-Editor, HL7 TermInfo; Principal Consultant, The Clinical Information Consultancy Ltd, Reading, England.
Monday: 1:45 -5:00 pm
This tutorial provides the students with an overview of the V2 Orders and Observation messages and major concepts and provides a sampling of the type of information that can be communicated using these messages.
Hans Buitendijk: HL7 2006 Board of Directors; Co-chair, HL7 ORC; Co-chair, HL7 Orders and Observations; Portfolio Manager, Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services Corporation
Monday: 1:45 -5:00 pm
This class provides a general overview of the functional content of V3. It then provides a more extensive review of how V3 supports two essential messaging areas: Patient Administration and Laboratory. A key purpose of this class is to reinforce and expand on the morning class by demonstrating how the V3 concepts and terminology are applied in specific functional areas (domains). Note that the class is based on the latest V3 ballot material. The latest V3 ballot publication can be accessed and downloaded from
www.hl7.org/v3ballot/html/welcome/introduction/index.htm
A new ballot should be posted in November. Students may be interested in reviewing or downloading the ballot prior to class.
Virginia Lorenzi: Senior Technical Specialist, FCG Management Services at New York Presbyterian
Monday: 1:45 -5:00 pm
The class begins with a background on the standard electronic attachments solution and explores, in detail, all of the standards involved including the X12, 277, 275 and HL7 CDA for attachments. Participants will learn about how LOINC codes are the key to this solution and how they are used in this specific context. Other topics covered include industry initiatives around attachments, a report on the first claims attachments pilot, and finally attention will be given to the regulatory process that will ultimately mandate these standards under HIPAA. Upon completion of this tutorial, students will have a good understanding of the standards for Claims Attachments, the regulatory process and what others in the industry are doing with these standards. While there will be a brief general background review, this tutorial is geared toward those with a working knowledge of HIPAA, specifically the standard transactions.
Anyone interested in learning about the development of national standards for healthcare attachment (claims and other) information; additionally, individuals responsible for HIPAA transaction implementation should attend.
Maria Ward : Co-chair, HL7 Attachments SIG; Member of the DSMO Steering Committee; Member of NUCC
Wes Rishel: Co-chair, HL7 Attachments SIG; VP Healthcare Research, Gartner; Commissioner, Commission for Certification of Health IT; Member of the Board of Directors, the eHealth Initiative
Tuesday: 9:00 - 10:30 am
This tutorial provides a brief history of the HL7 Organization and answers the question “What is HL7.” An overview of the current committee structure and content domains will presented. Attendees will learn the formal committee process and protocol and how to effectively participate in the work of the committees. This tutorial has been added at the request of First Time Attendees seeking to gain deeper knowledge of the organization and its work processes.
“Apprentice” HL7 attendees, e.g. attending less than one year
The History of the HL7 organization and basic concept of “What Is HL7?”, the general processes under which HL7 committees work, how to contribute to the work, and an understanding of formal committee decision-making protocol
Recommend attending the First Time Attendee session and reviewing information on the First Time Attendee website: www.HL7.org/Firsttime
John Quinn: Technical Committee Chair, HL7 Board of Directors; Principal, Accenture
Freida Hall: HL7 Board of Directors; Co-Chair, HL7 Process Improvement Committee
Tuesday: 09:00 am - 12:30 pm
Upon completion of this tutorial, students will be better prepared to take the HL7 Certification Exam.
Mike Henderson: Principal Consultant, Eastern Informatics
Tuesday: 09:00 am - 12:30 pm
This tutorial provides an in-depth look at the Version 3 XML Implementable Technology Specification (ITS), covering both the Structures and Data Types portions of the ITS.
The Version 3-related pre-requisites can be met by taking the Introduction to Version 3 Messaging tutorial series. The XML-related pre-requisites can be met in many ways; for instance refer to the following XML related specifications:
While a laptop is not required, there will be a paper-based workshop component to this tutorial and those with a laptop and any XML editor running on it might get more out of the hands-on exercises.
Kai Heitmann, M.D: HL7 Board of Directors, International Representative; HL7 Germany; University of Cologne (Germany), Heitmann Consulting & Services (The Netherlands)
Tuesday: 09:00 am - 12:30 pm
This tutorial provides an overview of the HL7 Version 3 Clinical Genomics Specifications, describing the Genotype and Genetic Profile models including the focal areas of sequencing, expression and proteomics data. The main paradigm underlying the models design is "encapsulate & bubble-up" which will be explained in detail, illustrating how it is possible to use the HL7 models to encapsulate raw genomic data represented in bioinformatics markups and yet bubble-up the most clinically significant portions of that data into other HL7 objects and associate them with the patient's clinical phenotypes. Furthermore, the tutorial will describe the Family History model which utilizes the Genotype model and allows for the exchange of a complete clinical genomics family history of a patient. Several experimental prototypes of the Clinical Genomics specs will be briefly described.
Clinical Genomics projects are emerging these days in attempt to bring the new discoveries stemmed from the completion of human genome mapping into healthcare practice. Anyone involved in such a project will benefit from this tutorial as standards that bridge the gap between medical informatics and bioinformatics are crucial for the realization the personalized medicine vision.
Introduction to Version 3 Messaging
Amnon Shabo (Shvo), PhD: Co-Chair Clinical Genomics SIG
Tuesday: 1:45 - 5:00 pm
This course is designed to explore the concept of conformance within HL7 Version 2 as described in Chapter 2 of Version 2.5.
Additionally, this tutorial will demonstrate how we can apply message profiling to interoperability by improving clarity, simplifying implementations and streamlining testing. Participants will be introduced to tools that facilitate analysis and interoperability while, at the same time, fully documenting HL7 conformance.
Abdul-Malik Shakir: Co-Chair, HL7 Educational Committee; Co-Chair, HL7 Implementation Committee; Principal Consultant, Shakir Consulting
Tuesday: 1:45 - 5:00 pm
This tutorial covers two Version 3 infrastructural areas in detail: Message Wrappers and Transport Protocols (e.g. ebXML, SOAP, Webservices, MLLP). It introduces how Version 3 messages are packaged, transmitted and acknowledged. It explains that all Version 3 message payloads are wrapped in two Message Wrappers. Its main focus is on these wrappers and on the relationship between HL7 messages and transport protocols in general. The details of individual transport protocols will NOT be covered.
Rene Spronk: Co-Chair, HL7 Infrastructure and Messaging TC; Co-Chair, HL7 Marketing Committee; Sr. Consultant, Ringholm GmbH
Tuesday: 1:45-5:00 pm
This course will walk attendees through all phases of interface project implementation. It will address the special management challenges presented by interfacing disparate applications.
V2 Introductory tutorial or equivalent industry experience
Mike Henderson: Principal Consultant, Eastern Informatics
Wednesday: 09:00 am - 12:30 pm
Interfacing two disparate applications can have hidden complexities. HL7 Version 2.x interfaces often require site-specific negotiation to determine the best solution. This tutorial guides the student through the analysis process and explains how to build robust interface solutions. Through hands-on exercises, students will experience the steps required to negotiate successful interfaces between two HL7 Version 2- compliant applications. Attendees will apply their skills in the areas of general HL7 design, trigger concepts, message formatting rules, identifiers, and table translation issues.
Introductory tutorial or industry experience with HL7 Control
Mike Henderson: Principle Consultant, Eastern Informatics
Wednesday: 09:00 am - 12:30 pm
The Clinical Document Architecture is HL7’s specification for standards-based exchange of clinical documents. CDA is based on the concept of scalable, incremental interoperability and uses Extensible Markup Language (XML), the HL7 Reference Information Model (RIM) and controlled terminology for structure and semantics. This tutorial presents the business case for CDA, its primary design principles and an overview of the technical specification. The session describes CDA projects in the United States, Europe and Asia/Pacific; the tools available for CDA creation, management and distribution; and the Care Record Summary Implementation Guides for CDA.
Liora Alschuler (Lead Speaker): HL7 Board Member, Co-Chair, HL7 Structured Documents TC; Co-Editor, CDA; Principal, Alschuler Associates, LLC
Keith W. Boone (Co-speaker): Editor, HL7 Care Record Summary; Dictaphone Corporation
Wednesday: 09:00 am - 12:30 pm
HL7 is the world's leading provider of standards for healthcare interoperability. This Tutorial provides an introduction and high-level overview of HL7's approach to interoperability. The primary focus is on HL7 Version 3, although V2 is also discussed. This tutorial is a suitable preparation for other tutorials which tackle specific subjects in greater depth. We considered calling this course "HL7 for Dummies"
This Foundation Course is aimed at those new to HL7 or those who want a high-level overview of what HL7 is seeking to achieve and its main deliverables. It has few pre-requisites, but some general knowledge of information technology and healthcare processes is assumed.
none
Tim Benson Co-chair HL7 Education Committee, Abies Ltd, London
Wednesday: 1:45 - 5:00 pm
CDA implementation requires understanding the CDA refinement of the RIM (the CDA RMIM), the Version 3 data types and how these combine with controlled vocabulary to form “clinical statements”. This tutorial reviews the principles of semantic interoperability with CDA and how these are reflected in the CDA model and implemented in the CDA schema. It reviews the CDA RMIM, schema and datatypes and gives a detailed walkthrough of a fully coded sample CDA Release 2 instance.
Calvin Beebe: (Lead Speaker) Co-Chair, HL7 Structured Documents TC, Co-Editor, CDA; Technical Specialist, Information Services, Mayo Clinic – Rochester, MN
Bob Dolin, M.D.: (Co-speaker) HL7 Board of Directors; Co- Chair, HL7 Structured Documents TC; Department of Internal Medicine, Kaiser Permanente
Wednesday: 1:45 - 5:00 pm
The use of HL7 Version 3 to implement interfaces within a particular application context can have hidden complexities. While Version 3 has been designed to reduce the amount of required site-specific negotiation, it is not possible to simply pull the message specification(s) "out of the box" and install it. This tutorial guides the student through the analysis process addressing issues necessary for building robust interface solutions. It covers:
This class also provides a lead-in for Version 3 Messaging Implementation Part 2: Implementation Mechanics
A basic understanding of Version 3 is a requirement (such as the Introduction to Version 3 Tutorials). More advanced (XML ITS and Wrappers) are encouraged as well. Previous experience in V2 implementations will be of value.
Mead Walker: Chair, HL7 Architectural Review Board; Mead Walker Consulting
Wednesday: 1:45 - 5:00 pm
Brief topics include vocabulary use in the CDA, templates and information models, and Common Terminology Services. Some of these topics are dealt with more deeply and completely in the Vocabulary II tutorial.
Those seeking an overview to terminology and LOINC and SNOMED in particular.
Christopher G. Chute, M.D., Dr. P.H.: Co-Chair, Vocabulary Technical Committee; Professor and Chair, Biomedical Informatics, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine
Thursday: 09:00 am - 12:30 pm
This class gives an overview of current technical strategies for implementing solutions based on the Version 3 specifications. How do we populate a message from our repository? What do we do when we receive a message? How do we process it?
This tutorial will address implementation of Version 3 messaging systems from a practical point of view. Different architectural approaches will be examined and compared. The tutorial is designed to address the needs of the implementer/developer, bridging the gap between domain experts and developers.
The tutorial will address techniques and design patterns for manipulating Version 3 messages: parsing and serialization, extended validation, communication, storage and retrieval, localization and extensions and enablement of existing applications.
The tutorial will also give a brief overview of the tools available to the HL7 community for implementing these solutions.
Roberto Ruggeri: Author and Editor, HL7 Web Services Profiles; Primary Contributor, HL7 Abstract Transport Specification; Senior Technical Strategist, Healthcare and Life Sciences, Microsoft Corporation
Thursday: 09:00 am - 12:30 pm
This hands-on workshop will demonstrate the use of Messaging Workbench in conjunction with the Message Maker test harness for the purpose of documenting and testing V2 conformance. The Messaging Workbench is the tool used to create, reverse engineer, and compare message profiles. The Message Maker is conformance-testing tool that automatically generates test messages for HL7 message profiles specifications.
Hands-on training with tools that support documenting and testing conformance as specified in Chapter 2 or Version 2.5 (and later).
Participation to this workshop requires experience implementing V2,
experience with Conformance using Message Profiles as described in
Chapter 2 (V2.5 and later), or the tutorial V2 Message Profiles
and Conformance.
Participants need laptops and they need to download and install the following tools:
Ioana Singureanu (Lead Speaker), Principal Consultant, Eversolve, LLC
Peter Rontey (Co-speaker), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
Thursday: 09:00 am - 12:30 pm
This tutorial offers an ideal introduction to the Extensible Stylesheet Language version 2.0 (XSL) and associated standards such as XPath 2.0. Attendees will get a solid understanding of XSL-based transformation concepts and applications.
The hands-on part of this tutorial gives every student the chance to explore the power of XSL by means of HL7-XML message transformations into different output formats. Onsite demonstrators are available for questions and help.
Benjamin Jung: Assistant Professor, Health Information Science University of Victoria
Thursday: 5:30 -7:30 pm
Health Level Seven is pleased to offer certification testing on HL7 V2.5 Chapter 2: Control. Certification testing is offered to those industry participants who are expected to have a working knowledge of the HL7 Messaging Standard. Interface analysts, healthcare systems analysts, medical software programmers, and medical informatics faculty and students are all potential candidates.
The knowledge required to pass the exam can be obtained by participation in the HL7 working group meetings, by attending HL7 educational sessions, and by field work dealing with HL7 interfaces, however, it is highly recommended that all those taking the test prepare by self-study of the HL7 Standard 2.5, Chapter 2: Control.
View a sample Certification Test.
View a Study Guide.
Thursday: 1:45 - 5:00 pm
This hands-on tutorial provides an in-depth look at the EHR Functional Specification and Standard (draft) along with background information including an overview of other EHR standards initiatives (ASTM, CEN, openEHR), as well as the status of on-going EHR projects. NOTE: this is a system functional standard, not a records/data standard.
Don Mon, PhD: Vice President of Practice Leadership, AHIMA
Thursday:1:45-5:00 pm
This tutorial will provide a step-by-step understanding of the tools that committee contributors and facilitators use to develop and submit content for HL7 Version 3 Message Standard Ballots. It will also cover tooling that committees and implementers can use to better document their specifications, including the ability to develop documentation targeted at different user groups. This will be a "hands-on" session with participants "following along" by running the tools on their own laptop computers. Instructions on downloading and installing the necessary tools will be provided to students in advance of the tutorial.
http://www.hl7.org/library/data-model/V3Tooling/toolsIndex.htm
Individuals who are supporting HL7 Committees, related project teams, and others involved in the documentation of messaging standards, and the creation and documentation of message designs
The intent is to provide an overview of the tooling that supports ballot tooling from "end-to-end" including:
This tutorial pre-supposes a detailed familiarity with Version 3 terminology. At a minimum, the prospective student should have taken or have previous knowledge of the material addressed in the Introduction to Version 3 tutorials. Other courses on the V3 track, especially the V3 Implementation Part 1 class, are suggested as well.
The tutorial will not cover V3 terminology, the RIM, representation of concepts in an RMIM, cloning, application roles, etc. It is presumed that the participants are conversant with these topics and simply need to know how to capture the artifacts with the tools.
Lloyd McKenzie, P.Eng.; Principal Consultant, LM&A Consulting Ltd.; Co-Chair, HL7 Tooling Committee, MnM Facilitator at Large; Co- Chair, HL7 Modeling & Methodology TC
George (Woody) Beeler, PhD; Principal, Beeler Consulting, LLC; Co- Chair, HL7 Modeling & Methodology TC
Thursday: 1:45-5:00 pm
The Unified Modeling Language is an Object Management Group Standard (OMG) which assists modelers in formalizing information models. Participants will learn to generate state models, create directory boards, activity diagrams, and write OCL statements to constrain their models.
Participants will also learn to use the HL7 modeling toolkit to
create Domain Message Information Models (D-MIMs) and
Refined Message Information Models (R-MIMs).
Participants will be introduced to the concept of Ontologic
representation and we will discuss methods for achieving
semantic interoperability between information models and
terminological models.
By the end of the tutorial participants will be able to create
accurate UML models assign attributes to classes of
information, determine the appropriate relations between
classes of information and will be able to determine the
cardinalities of these associations.We will examine some
existing models, as examples of high quality model design.
Clinicians, IT professionals, scientists, educators, and
researchers; physicians, nurses, and other healthcare
professionals; Biomedical engineers and workers inbioinformatics; administrators
and CIOs; computer scientists, system developers, and programmers; and medical
librarians and other information professionals.
Peter Elkin, M.D: Professor of Medicine and Medical Informatics, Mayo Clinic/Foundation; Co-Chair, HL7 Templates
No Tutorials are scheduled for Friday.