HL7 is a complex standard, because the reality it tries to describe is
complex. It was designed (and is still being designed) to allow the transfer
of all kinds of information related with health institutions.
So, depending on the specific institutions and purposes involved, either the
HL7 messages flowing between them contain a small and simple set of useful
information, and therefore might be parsed on the fly, or they contain a
full load of technical, administrative and financial information and
therefore demand a slightly more complex parser and a lot of related tables
and business rules.
I guess it would be important to Sean to get more specific information on
the task, because the parser will probably be the least complicated part of
it.
Hélder M. Vieira
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com>
To: "Kenneth B. Hill" <ken@scottshill.com>
Cc: "Scott Marlowe" <smarlowe@g2switchworks.com>;
<pgsql-admin@postgresql.org>
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2006 7:04 PM
Subject: Re: [ADMIN] Copy HL7 record/file into PostgreSQL Table
> Kenneth B. Hill wrote:
>> An HL7 file is a tagged file used to transfer electronic health records.
>> The file looks like:
>>
>> MSH|^~\&|EPIC|EPICADT|SMS|SMSADT|199912271408|CHARRIS|ADT^A04|1817457|
>> EVN|A04|199912271408|||CHARRIS
>> PID||0493575^^^2^ID 1|454721||DOE^JOHN^^^^|DOE^JOHN^^^^|19480203|M|
>> NK1||CONROY^MARI^^^^|SPO||(216)731-4359||EC|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
>> PV1||O|168 ~219~C~PMA^^^^^^^^^||||277^ALLEN FADZL^BONNIE^^^^||||||||||
>>
>
> You *might* actually not have to parse this... just use | as your
> delimiter with copy.