This guide is for healthcare integration analysts and their managers. In this chapter, learn how to get maximum value from the work that has gone into creating interfacing artifacts, assets, and documentation.

1. HL7 SURVIVAL
GUIDE
CHAPTER 11
A publication of
A supplement to the HL7 Survival Guide, available at
http://caristix.com/blog/category/hl7-survival-guide/

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Caristix software brings your whole interfacing
process together in a single, powerful platform.
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ABOUT CARISTIX
VENDOR-
AGNOSTIC
Work with any
interface engine.
NO MORE TRIAL
AND ERROR
Scope it right. Manage
requirements.
CUT TIME-TO-
GO-LIVE
Up to 50%.
CLEAR YOUR
INTERFACING
BACKLOG
Simplify dramatically.
Align teams.
REQUEST A DEMO
http://promo.caristix.com/demo/

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CHAPTER 11: Maintenance, Troubleshooting, Monitoring

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You’ve read about creating interfacing artifacts, assets and
documentation: profiles, gap analyses, test plans, messages
and systems, and workflow maps. What’s next?
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Getting maximum value.

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Why Document? 5 Reasons
1. Troubleshoot: Easily troubleshoot issues and tweak
configurations in your live interface
2. Monitor: Use the electronic versions of your profiles you
created, in monitoring
– Ex: shoot a message through a profile using Caristix Message
Player
– Or run problematic messages against your developed test
scenarios
3. Share: Store your profiles and specs in a central repository
for your support team
– Make them quickly accessible
– Make those files read-only if necessary
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Start with Documentation

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Why Document?
4. Be proactive: Quickly and proactively address issues and
avoid cost by using the assets you’ve already built
5. Avoid pile-ups: Keep your users happy with rapid
troubleshooting that avoids downtime and avoids pile-ups
for support.
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Start with Documentation

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• Documenting profiles helps streamline processes when performing a system
upgrade.
– Easier to connect the next system
– Don’t need to start from scratch
• Once interfaces are in place, monitor them to ensure they’re supporting your
processes as designed.
• Monitoring empowers you to be proactive in troubleshooting issues.
– Set up thresholds and be alerted to potential issues
• Some interface engines include monitoring capabilities.
• Look for vendor-agnostic solutions that cover the entire integration environment.
• Monitoring goal: to be able to quickly determine if HL7 messages are your
problem.
• Monitoring should link back to your test cases and interface specifications.
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Maintenance, Monitoring and Troubleshooting

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HL7 SURVIVAL GUIDE CHAPTER 11 8
4 Best Practices for Extracting Maximum Value from
Your Artifacts
1. Work with real-world messages.
– When you’re developing deliverables such as profiles, it’s important to start
with real-world messages for the reasons we covered earlier in this chapter
on HL7 interface specifications.
– You will refer back to these deliverables over and over throughout the
interface life cycle.
– If you start with placeholders or fictitious information, you’ll struggle when it
comes time to troubleshoot issues.
Reminder: interface-related artifacts increase in value over time.

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2. Share your work.
– Share your artifacts.
– Encourage diligence in documenting all aspects of your interface project.
– Have all related documentation on hand. This practice helps in another
way: by documenting what changes have been made to the interface over
time, it’s much easier to quickly troubleshoot any issue.
– Keep an on-going to-do list, especially around gap analysis as this will help
you better approach maintenance tasks.
– Make it easy for people to share their work and documentation. Use
SharePoint, or look for collaboration functionality in the software you
purchase
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4 Best Practices for Extracting Maximum Value from
Your Artifacts

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3. Archive your work.
• Upgrades and updates to the interface engine will happen.
• You don’t want to get stuck being the victim of Frozen Interface Syndrome, which
occurs when you are trying to implement a new interface and need all participants to
switch over at the same time but can’t get their cooperation.
• Avoid Black Box Syndrome, when you lack full visibility into all the work that has gone
into interface development handled by a third party, making it nearly impossible to
upgrade, tweak, and manage the interface without spending lots of money and time.
• Don’t make the mistake of thinking you won’t need certain documentation in the future.
In fact, you’ll probably re-use it for your next project or for an interface or system
update.
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4 Best Practices for Extracting Maximum Value from
Your Artifacts

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4. Understand content management.
• Effective documentation requires that you think beyond message structure and
troubleshooting.
• Think about clinical content and how it changes over time. For example, lab orders
have their own codes and these codes get updated over time. You want ready access
to the most up-to-date list as needed. And you need them reflected in your HL7 tables.
That means you need to plan from the start how you’ll map the code sets to the right
fields and build that into your interface and the system at go-live.
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4 Best Practices for Extracting Maximum Value from
Your Artifacts

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• To make it easier for your organization to take full advantage
of its interfacing artifacts, assets, and documentation,
download this checklist of what to look for when you’re
researching collaboration software.
• Download the supplement – Checklist: Collaboration Software for
HL7 Integration
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Checklist: Collaboration Software for HL7 Integrations

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• Chapter 12 in the HL7 Survival Guide: Definitions
– A reference capturing definitions of all the terminology
used in the HL7 Survival Guide.
– Blog link: http://caristix.com/blog/2013/06/hl7-survival-
guide-chapter-12/
– Slide deck on Slideshare: coming soon.
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UP NEXT: CHAPTER 12

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Is a recommendation unclear?
Disagree with something we said?
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support@caristix.com
1-877-872-0027
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