Test Results and Appointments Integration

Why do an integration?

Giving test results to patients allows avoiding hospital appointments, and makes hospital appointments safer and more efficient. Hospitals can also release COVID-19 test results to keep patients out of hospital.

Sending appointments to patients digitally increases attendance rates as the patients know the exact appointment time. By contrast, letters about appointments may not arrive or may arrive out of sequence. To to this a record must first be created.

Appointments and laboratory results can both be sent to PKB using standard HL7 v2 messages from a Trust Integration Engine (TIE).

Here are some sample configurations for enabling common TIE software to send data to PKB.

Creating Medical Records and Updating Demographics

Most customers manage their patient list using a Patient Administration System (PAS). This is typically configured to send demographic information to the TIE using the ADT series of HL7 v2 messages. Demographic details of a new patient are generally contained within an ADT A28 message, whilst updates are generally sent in an ADT A31 message.

PKB accepts both ADT A28 and A31 messages, and processes them identically.

• If there is no existing medical record for the patient then a new one will be created

• If there is an existing medical record then the demographic details will be updated

You can therefore create new medical records in PKB, and update the demographics of existing medical records, by forwarding these message types from your TIE to PKB's HL7 endpoint.

Appointments

Most customers manage appointments using a Patient Administration System (PAS). These are typically configured to send appointment updates to the TIE using the SIU series of HL7 v2 messages. For example, a new appointment is created using the SIU S12 message.

Appointments can also be edited (SIU S13), cancelled (SIU S15), or marked as Did Not Attend (SIU S26), all using their standard message types.

You can send appointments to PKB by forwarding these message types from your TIE to PKB's HL7 endpoint.

Laboratory Results

Most customers manage laboratory results using a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS). These are typically configured to send laboratory results to the TIE using the ORU R01 HL7 v2 message.

This same message can be used to redact or correct previously sent results.

You can send laboratory results to PKB by forwarding this message type from your TIE to PKB's HL7 endpoint.

Integration Process

The following steps outline the process for sending data to PKB:

• Customer establishes connectivity to the test and production servers

• PKB issues credentials to the test server

• Customer sends test data to the test server

• PKB and customer confirm that the data is being processed as expected

• PKB issues credentials to the production server. Note: the HL7 credentials will be tied to your PKB organisation, so this must already have been set up.

• Customer enables production data feed