Our mission is simple, provide a suite of products and HL7 tools which are designed with one primary objective: Make your task of creating real-world HL7 interfaces as rapid and painless as we can.
We want to help you accomplish your HL7 mission in as few steps and with as few moving parts as possible. We start by approaching the problem differently from other HL7 software companies by breaking the HL7 interface processes up into their individual functional components. For example, consider the task of sending outbound HL7 messages over TCP/IP MLLP. If your mission in this area is only to consume inbound HL7 messages and you have no need to produce and send any outbound HL7 messages then why on earth should you be forced to pay for that outbound HL7 functionality?
To learn more about the HermeTech family of products click here. All of our software is free to download and try out.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to just get started. Identifying your trading partner (the entity with whom you are exchanging messages) and what you need to get from them. What do they expect from you? What are the right HL7 tools to use? All the while knowing that a wrong step can result in hours, days, even weeks of wasted time and (worse) money.
So start simply, on a blank white board draw a vertical line down the center. On the left side write HL7 Message Transport
and
on the right side write HL7 Message Processing
. Now always keep them separate in your mind when identifying your functional requirements.
Message Transport
is simply how do HL7 messages get from point A to point B
while Message Processing
is simply what do
I do with HL7 messages that I receive and/or how do I create HL7 messages that I need to send
.
A proof-of-concept real world
HL7 interface.
The UltraPort SQL Schema Engine is our most popular HL7 database product. It works with both Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL. Running in the background as a Microsoft Windows service you can use it to both consume / import HL7 messages (for inbound interfaces) and create HL7 messages (for outbound interfaces).
Getting Started with the SQL Schema Engine
When it comes to HL7 Message Transport
you will have many options. Secure FTP, creating a Web service, and so on. You can do all of this of course, but for your
HL7 interface to be truly, certifiably HL7 Compatible you must be able to support the HL7 Standard TCP/IP MLLP protocol for sending and
receiving messages
. For those new to developing these types of medical HL7 EDI interfaces this can sound very intimidating. It is not.
If you need these services we have the UltraPort HL7 TCP/IP Listener (our HL7 message receiver) and the UltraPort HL7 TCP/IP Router (our HL7 message sender). They are fast, reliable, affordable and you can download, install, configure, and have them up and running in less than 15 minutes.
Getting Started with the UltraPort HL7 Listener
Using the UltraPort Router to Send HL7 Messages
specialgadget
Everyone who has worked in IT for a while has had this experience. You search for tools, you come across something that you're not quite sure what it does, but you download it anyway to find out and BAM you discover that it's incredible and you cannot imagine how you ever got along without it. With the UltraPort products this is the UltraPort HL7 Postmaster. It is the ultimate production level HL7 jack-of-all-trades.
A lot of the time when you are working on an interface you can only seem to get it just about right. Like putting a round peg into a square hole, it fills it up the center but leaves small blank spots in the corners. That's where the Postmaster comes in. If you work in HL7 you really owe it to yourself to investigate what this unique and innovative program can do for you.
And finally a Notepad for graphically viewing and editing HL7 messages 3 different ways, a HL7 message search engine, a file splitting or consolidation engine, an integrated Hex editor, a built-in MS SQL Query engine to integrate with our award winning UltraPort SQL Database Engine and much more!
Can your HL7 editor do this?
The EasyHL7 .Net Components is our HL7 software developer toolkit designed to give programmers the ability to integrate HL7 functionality into their existing HL7 applications cheaply, quickly and reliably. These components can streamline HL7 software development in .Net immensely and are unique in the market because the cost of redistribution is so low.
In order to further entice HL7 software developers that need to insure that their
interfaces are extensible, all server
products discussed on this page (the SQL Schema Engine, the
Listener, the Router, and the Postmaster) have free API class libraries available for download from within their
online help.
For over 15 years HermeTech has had some of the best, lowest prices in the world for commercial HL7 software.
That being said, it is not free and HL7 interfaces overall are not cheap for the end-user. All of the UltraPort software is licensed
per-computer
and even though we have a generous discount program for repeat customers who buy licenses from us all the time it can
be expensive.
This is why, in July of 2018, we created HL7+ which is a subscription model which includes ALL of the products discussed above. Depending on your business model this may be something you want to try out. If you only need our tools to help within your own enterprise (in the case of a hospital, or medical group for example) and only have 1 or 2 HL7 servers to support then you would probably want to just purchase computer licenses.
However, if your business model includes distribution of your HL7 interfaces to YOUR customers to be deployed on their servers then HL7+ might be right for you. See the HL7+ Page for more information OR you can also visit the separate website we have created just for this at www.HL7Plus.com.
Getting Started with HL7+
HL7 interface providers (our customers) have told us time and again that they find themselves in the unique position of having to provide support (and
be held accountable if there are problems) for their processes and systems which are running on servers that they do not control (to wit, their clients).
Thus they were being forced to provide reactive rather than proactive support since they could not react until after their customer discovered
that a problem was occurring, which in the world of HL7 can be terrible. Add to this the fact that the servers being supported are typically highly secure, tightly
managed (internally by the client), with an internal IT department that is mostly concerned about their own problems of asset-management to worry about the HL7 software
vendor and their concerns. We sympathized with our clients, and in late 2015 we sent our developers into their room for a year and told them: Make a solution we can
provide for our customers
.
When they finally emerged, pale from lack of sun, we found that they had done something remarkable. They had created a totally different kind of RSM (Remote System Monitor) and Alerts software which we called WinScry. It applies not only to HL7 solution providers but for any software providers facing the same problem (how to monitor processes on a server not under your control). WinScry addresses the problem by being specifically designed to OVERCOME any objections from local network administrators by using passive monitoring. On the client servers it has a light footprint, is incapable of producing SPAM, and exerts no remote control over the server. Watch the video below or visit www.WinScry.com to get an idea of what we're talking about.
Getting Started with WinScry
Please don't hesitate to drop us an email if you have any comments or would like to talk about our products, future projects and product releases or if you need help / advice about HL7 Interfacing. Or feel free to contact us by visiting our contacts page.
|
As part of their on-going site analysis programme McAfee has given us a clean bill of health with respect to both our site content and our software downloads. You can view our listing on McAfee's SiteAdvisor page at www.siteadvisor.com/sites/hermetechnz.com |
|