Health Level 7

Health Level 7 (HL7) is an international community of health-care subject matter experts and information scientists collaborating to create standards for the exchange, management and integration of electronic healthcare information. HL7 promotes the use of such standards within and among health-care organizations to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of health-care delivery for the benefit of all.

Health Level Seven is one of several American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-accredited Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) operating in the health-care arena. Most SDOs produce standards (sometimes called specifications or protocols) for a particular health-care domain such as pharmacy, medical devices, imaging or insurance (claims processing) transactions. Health Level Seven’s domain is clinical and administrative data.