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The HL7 interface lifecycle. You need to test during Configuration, Validation, and Maintenance.

In the last two chapters, we covered some of the requirements-related artifacts you need. Now it’s time for testing, which you conduct at different phases in the interface lifecycle: during configuration and development; during the formal validation phase; and during maintenance.

“Why test?,” you ask. When you start to develop and iterate on your interface, you run tests to avoid introducing new problems – you check and test [...]

No-brainer Message Player buttons

Message Player, our free HL7 listener/router utility designed for HIT software developers, interface developers, and interface analysts, is now out.

You might have seen other HL7 listeners and routers out there. What makes Message Player different is that it’s dead-easy to use. There are no bells and whistles. It’s independent of other software and engines, so once you’ve downloaded the installation package, you can run it on a desktop machine and get going quickly.

Why Use Message Player

first [...]

When provider organizations are on a tight deadline to implement or upgrade an EHR, EMR, HIS or other clinical system, setting up a test or staging system can seem like just another procedural hurdle. So it couldn’t hurt to just do the final testing in the live, production system, right?

Wrong.

Why It’s Tempting

It might seem quicker to simply tag test data as “Test Patient1″ in “Bed #1-T” and get it into the production EMR or HIS. You skip duplicate server (or [...]

There seems to be two conflicting needs in software testing in healthcare: traceability and test performance.

Traceability Traceability is the ability to link your requirements to your tests:

In healthcare, regulatory compliance is on the side of traceability. Reasonably enough, regulators want to know that products actually do what they’re designed to do. Traceability provides that chain of evidence.

Test Performance However, traceability can come at the expense of test performance — defined as how efficiently a product can be tested both for [...]