Multimedia Content Management with HL7v3 Messages

Definition of transfer mechanisms for multimedia files is a common need encountered in many healthcare systems today. Medical documents, like discharge letters or specialist opinions can nowadays be enriched with variety of different multimedia items like diagnostic images or PDF scanned documents. The main requirement from the business perspective is to introduce technology independent mechanism for multimedia content management in the heterogeneous healthcare messaging and communication environments. In the paper we explore potential models for multimedia management with HL7 messages, with HL7 as the emerging messaging standard in healthcare information and communication systems. Furthermore, we introduce the guidelines for implementation of HL7v3 empowered multimedia content transfer