Messaging Workbench Project

Conformance testing measures whether a product implements a message specification faithfully. CDC–NPCR is funding the Health Level Seven (HL7) Messaging Workbench (MWB) Project to develop a conformance testing tool cancer registries and laboratories can use to ensure electronic anatomical pathology reports conform to the HL7 2.3.1 message specification contained within the (North American Association of Central Cancer Registries) NAACCR Volume V Standard for Pathology Laboratory Electronic Reporting Guide. This project resulted from discussions within the NAACCR Pathology Data Work Group (WG) recognizing the need for conformance testing. This project will be completed in collaboration with the NAACCR Pathology Data WG.

Specifically, the first phase of this project—

• Used the latest released version of the HL7 MWB and installed and updated libraries as necessary.



• Built a MWB profile for the corresponding HL7 2.3.1 message specification according to the NAACCR Volume V Standard for Pathology Laboratory Electronic Reporting Guide.



• Populated the local constrained table library appropriately using the standard (unchanged by NAACCR) tables from HL7.



• Built the correct entries for the NAACCR-specific tables in the local constrained table library using the NAACCR-specific table values.



• Identified and documented site-specific tables that messaging participants must identify to enable full message processing (such as NamespaceID)



• Developed the final version of the HL7 MWB executable file and corresponding profile to share with states.

Project Status

First Phase

• The first phase of the project is complete.



• The final version of the NAACCR HL7 MWB profile using the HL7 specifications defined in the NAACCR Volume V Standard for Pathology Laboratory Electronic Reporting Guide is complete.



• This profile is available on the NAACCR Pathology Standards page* on the NAACCR Web site.



• Guidance on downloading the HL7 MWB executable files from the HL7 Web page also is available on the NAACCR Web site.

Second Phase

The second phase of this project will—

• Capture the commentary and business rules in the NAACCR specification in the 'Notes' components of the appropriate profile elements for later output in the XML/HTML format.



• Generate the components of the NAACCR specification from the MWB tool and profile listed below.
• Front matter and introductory prose.
• Message definition.
• Segment and field tables and definitions.
• Data types definitions.
• NAACCR implementation notes.
• Data tables in all fields that are either required or optional.


• Output the conformance profile XML, which is an ANSI standard, and register it in the national registry of HL7 conformance profiles.



• Create test messages for the receiving systems at the registries, with good data and format.



• Develop a guide on how to use the MWB profile for validation testing.

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