Accessing HL7 Standard Documentation from the MWB
This feature is primarily aimed at those who are fortunate enough to have a copy of the HL7 Access Database distributed by HL7. This feature makes it possible to access message element specific sections within the html version of the standard that is supplied with the HL7 Database product. Theoretically this method could also be used to access other documentation, but the MWB standard segment libraries have been prepared specifically to facilitate lashing up to the HL7 standard html documents.
The procedure for setting this up in the MWB is as follows:
For each version specific HL7 segment library, invoke the Maint\Libraries\Edit Library option. There is a new field called Associated Document Folder that allows you to navigate to the folder that contains the version specific html documents and select it.
The HL7 Database product (the version issued with v 2.4 specifically) has a folder named HTML. Within that folder are sub folders named std21, std22...std24 etc. (presumably one stdxxx folder for each HL7 version of the database that was purchased). It is these folders that you want to select for the Associated Document Folder field in the Library edit function. For example to access HL7 documentation for v2.4 segment fields, edit the HL7 2-4.mcf file distributed with release 6.2 of the MWB, navigate and select ..\HTML\std24 in the Associated Document Folder field. Click save to preserve the association. Only release 6.2 (and presumably above) segment libraries are prepared for association with the HL7 html documentation.
That’s all that is required for setup if the HL7 standard html documents are to be accessed. To see how it works, start a new profile consisting of just the MSH segment and compile. Right click on an element in the Message Tree, and select the second from the last option from the end of the pop-up menu – HL7 Lookup.
This results in the appearance of a document window displaying the HL7 documentation associated with the selected field or segment, as illustrated below:
That is all there is to accessing the HL7 documentation for fields and segments. The feature will also work with legacy profiles that were created prior to the segment library modifications of release 6.2, but may display a little slower because a more complicated lookup algorithm must be employed.
Again select the MSH.1 element in the tree view, and right click. This time select the last option on the pop-up menu – View/Add/Edit Doc links. This results in the following pop-up display:
Fig 3. Display of document link
The document link displayed points directly to a section within the html documents contained in the ..\std24 folder discussed above. The pointer field is a new message element field as of release 6.2, and was populated by the MWB’s ODBC library update function from the HL7 Database. It is this field that could permit an association with documents other than those associated with the HL7 Database product if so desired.
As MWB release 6.2 goes into production, only html documents for versions 2.2 through 2.4 were available for preparation with linkage to html documents. Segment library v2.5 therefore has not been so prepared.