>>>>>>BTW What is LIS and RIS ??
>>>>>
>>>>>LIS, probably means Laboratory Information Systems. We have to deal with that when connecting our app to bloodtest analysers.
>>>>
>>>>Yes. In our current system (VFP), it talks to 3rd party softwares - SysMex is one of them - to get the actual results of the test from the machine thus eliminates encoding. In .NET development, we'll go directly to the machine provided that it is HL7 compliant. We are having problems with machines which are ODBC compliant only.
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>>>AFAIK, Most LIS machines don't talk HL7, but ASTM, which is a protocol specifically developed for this. I know there is middleware that translates between the two.
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>>I don't have the exact knowledge how it works because only the providers knows these technical info but it seems that there are drivers specific and talks to the machine and translates them to HL7 which is the defacto standard.
>
>HL7 is the defacto standard for heatlh care institutes. However, AFAIK, ASTM is the defacto standard for laboratory instruments. And yes there is middleware that translates between the two (We had a look at a open source one, forgot the name though), we thought it was too much trouble and implemented our ASTM interface to talk directly to the machines as it would knock out this extra third party component (potential headaches).

Yes. Third party component are potential headaches aside from being costly which is not good in our business.