Electronic data interchange for health care

This article reviews current standardization activities in North America and Europe that aim to allow electronic data interchange among health care applications. It analyzes the requirements communication subsystems must meet to allow for such standard-based communication between heterogeneous health care applications. To illustrate such a system the authors present the architecture of the HL7/EDIFACT Communication Subsystem (HECS). The HECS provides communication agents that interface with existing applications, as well as translation and routing functions based on a reliable underlying delivery mechanism.