Celso Figueiredo

Paulo Mendes
University of Minho
School of Engineering
Department of Industrial Electronics
Biotelemetry HL7
This project attempts the creation of client and server applications for real time communication of a biomedical signal, using a standardized protocol
for the syntax of medical messages, the HL7 (Health Level 7). HL7 is an application layer protocol whose primary goal is to provide global
specifications for the exchange of data between healthcare computer applications, altering the actual scene of local applications in each healthcare
establishment.
The language used for the application programming was the G language, which is the graphical language of the LabView software of National
Instruments.
The created client application allows the user to send a message containing a waveform (like an ECG) in its text to a remote computer, using the
TCP/IP protocol. The user can adjust parameters such as the sampling frequency and the number of samples per message. The server application has
the ability to parse the received message and to extract the waveform allowing graphic visualization on real time.
Summary
HL7 stands for Health Level 7. The Level 7 designation refers to the highest
layer of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model of the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) as the HL7 Standard is primarily focused
on the issues that occur within the seventh (or application) level. These are the
definitions of the data to be exchanged, the timing of the exchanges, and the
communication of certain application-specific errors between the applications.
The Standard currently addresses the interfaces among various systems that
send or receive patient admissions/registration, discharge or transfer (ADT)
data, queries, resource and patient scheduling, orders, results, clinical
observations, billing, master file update information, medical records,
scheduling, patient referral, and patient care.
It does not try to assume a particular architecture with respect to the placement
of data within applications but is designed to support a central patient care
system as well as a more distributed environment where data resides in
departmental systems. Instead, HL7 serves as a way for inherently disparate
applications and data architectures operating in a heterogeneous system
environment to communicate with each other. However, HL7 does not currently
provide the interfaces definition for real time data communication in between
medical devices like ECG or EEG and the control unit.
The Health Level 7 Protocol Implementation - Block Diagram
Results and Conclusions
Real time reception of a ECG signal by
the server application
The biomedical signal and additional information were successfully transmitted at
different sampling frequencies, beyond the 2000 Hz frequency, which is the
recommended sampling rate for a high-resolution ECG. This results assure the
functionality of the created application.
The use of a graphical programming language has brought many advantages over
the text based languages, given the possibility of creating an application in a block
diagram display.
This project has shown a gap concerning the specifications of the HL7 protocol, in
real-time data communication. This impediment has been overcome by sending
messages at regular intervals, which are determined by the sampling frequency and
the number of samples per message. The server application has the ability of
decoding messages right after their reception, allowing graphical visualization of the
waveform on real time.
Biomedical
Signal
Server Application
Patient and Institutional Data
HL7 Message
Reception via TCP/IP
HL7 Message
Parsing
Information
Extraction
Client Application
Sampling Frequency and
Number of Samples
Patient and
Institutional Data
Acquisition of
Biomedical Signal
HL7 Message
Encoding
Shipment of the HL7
Message via TCP/IP
Signal
Patient
Data
Acquisition Client Application
HL7
Message
TCP/IP Server Application
Implementation - Illustration
HL7 Message
Extracted
Waveform