Design and implementation of Converter V2 and V3 for HL7 messages

HL7 appears in two series of versions; version 2.x (V2) and version 3.0 (V3). Both versions are not compatible with each other. V2 is a market success but not fulfilling the emerging requirements of the world. V3 has the fame to claim as global and futuristic standard. In America 93% hospital are using applications that are developed according to HL7 version 2.x specification. To enhance the adoption rate of applications that will develop according to HL7 Version 3 specification, for the short term, we have to support the conversion of HL7 V2 message to HL7 V3 so that people who have invested a huge amount in developing the application according to HL7 V2 specification can evenly shift to HL7 Version 3 standard. To address the most challenging problem of interoperability among version 2.x and Version 3.0, we propose architecture of converter V2 and V3. It acts as mediator that has ability of converting communications messages of HL7 V2 messages and HL7 V3 messages using conversion mapping rules which user creates by mapping HL7 V2 segment’s fields to its corresponding V3 entity’s attributes. Finally this map file is used to generate target message.