Evolution of Health Level-7

Abstract

In the area of the healthcare revolution, the standardization of medical information is gaining more attention now a day. To integrate the healthcare systems for sharing, exchanging, storing and querying of patient's data between hospitals and specialists require standardization. There is a need of standardization in order to share such sensitive information among hospitals & specialists. Different medical standards are in use to develop interoperable and reliable medical systems. i.e Health Level 7 (HL-7), FHIR and Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) etc. All these standards have their own features of limitations. This paper presents a detailed survey on evolution of HL7 standards since its birth. Different landmark modifications in this standard are discussed in this paper. Major research contributions by other researchers related to HL-7 are also presented. The paper finally highlights the features & limitations of HL7 and also compares it with other standards.