HL7 tester

The HL7 tester analyzes HL7 v2.x messages by parsing structure, segments, and fields; it targets health IT developers, EHR integrators, and QA teams during interface development, testing, and data quality checks. It supports multiple HL7 v2.x versions and common message types such as ADT, ORM, and ORU. The tool operates on supplied text input and returns structured results suitable for automated validation.

Conceptually, it normalizes the message, breaks it into segments with carriage returns, splits segments into fields with the '|' delimiter, and further decodes components with '^'. It builds a reference of segments (MSH, PID, PV1, etc.), validates required fields, and can extract values such as PID-5 for patient name. Outputs include a validity flag, a list of errors, the parsed segments, and extracted fields.

Unique differentiators include offline, version-aware validation, the ability to focus on a specific segment/field, support for test-case exports, and a straightforward error model that facilitates rapid debugging and integration testing.