HL7 version 3 parsing

Question

I was parsing HL7 version 2.x messages through HAPI. Now I want to parse HL7 version 3 messages, which are in XML format. HAPI does not support HL7 version 3, so how can I do this?

Answer 1

HL7 version 3 is essentially XML-formatted HL7 data. As such, you could use any old XML parser. That said, you would have to build the intelligence re: segments etc... in yourself.

It does, however, appear that there is an HL7 v3 Java Special Interest Group, which has developed an API at least for RIM.

Another option would be to look at an integration engine. An open source option here is mirth. Mirth is a interface integration engine. It is a separate product - not a library you would integrate with your own. It can, however, take over the heavy lifting of converting HL7 to something more useful in your application - a Web Service call, a database insert, a differently formatted file (pdf, edi, etc).