MEDICAL LABORATORY REPORT MESSAGE GATEWAY

摘要

A gateway enables medical (including genetic and genomic) laboratories and health care providers (collectively "clients") to communicate electronic messages with each other without developing and maintaining an interface for each peer. The gateway translates messages sent between the parties. The gateway receives messages from each sender in a form, and containing diagnostic codes, preferred by the sender. For each received message, the gateway ascertains an intended receiving client. Each client may specify one or more receivers (such as applications) that are to receive messages sent to the client, as well as a separate form, and optionally a set of codes, for each receiver. For each receiver, the gateway generates translated messages, according to the receiver's preferred form and/or codes. The gateway sends the translated messages to each of the designated receivers. The gateway may include a validation component to check incoming messages to ensure the messages include required information and that information values are valid or acceptable. The gateway may include an exception handler that notifies a sending client if a message from the client fails to be translated or sent correctly. The gateway may maintain a repository in which the gateway stores copies of messages the gateway sent or would have sent to clients. The gateway provides an interface, such as a secure web interface, to this repository. Clients may access messages or lists of messages, especially messages the clients are not otherwise capable of receiving, through this interface. The gateway may store copies of some of the data that flows through the gateway in a bioinformatics database, which may be automatically analyzed by the gateway or queried for research or patient care purposes.