Health Level Seven (HL7) Standards: operating in the healthcare arena
a framework (and related standards) for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information. These standards define how information is package and communicated from one party to another, setting the language, structure and data types required for seamless integration between systems. HL7 standards support clinical practice and the management, delivery, and evaluation of health services, and are recognized as the most commonly used in the world.
It states that its mission is to provide standards for interoperability that improve care delivery, optimize workflow, reduce ambiguity, and enhance knowledge transfer among all stakeholders, including healthcare providers, government agencies, the vendor community, fellow SDOs (standards-developing organizations), and patients.
The “Level Seven” in HL7’s name refers to the
highest level of the International Standards Organization’s (ISO) communications model for Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) application level. The application level addresses definition of the data to be exchanged, the timing of the interchange, and the communication of certain errors to the application. The seventh level supports such functions as security checks, participant identification, availability checks, exchange mechanism negotiations and, most importantly, data exchange structuring.
(retrieved from http://www.hl7.org)
Usability studies can be used to support IT in a number of ways. Which of the following are reasons to complete these studies in a health care setting? –assesses the adequacy of a design or redesign early in the systems life cycle, helps determine or clarify users’ requirements determination