What is HL7 (Health Level Seven International)? | Definition from TechTarget
The HL7 Reference Information Model offers valuable guidance for developing enhanced specifications in health informatics. The "7" in HL7 refers to Layer 7 of the ISO Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model. Learn how HL7 International develops standards to enable more seamless retrieval, exchange and sharing of electronic health data among health IT systems.HL7 (Health Level Seven International) is an accredited, not-for-profit organization that develops frameworks and standards used worldwide for health IT applications to retrieve, exchange, share and integrate electronic health information.HL7 standards define formats for structuring and exchanging healthcare data so that different clinical and administrative systems, such as electronic health record (EHR) software and billing applications, can share information quickly and efficiently.HL7-v2 contained several semantic inconsistencies. An attempt to eliminate these inconsistencies by HL7 International led to the development of HL7-v3. This standard included a well-defined data model called RIM (Reference Information Model) to represent clinical data in a standard format.