Messaging Workbench Project

Conformance testing measures whether a product implements a message specification faithfully. CDC-NPCR funded the Health Level Seven (HL7) Messaging Workbench (MWB) Project to develop a conformance testing tool that 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 was completed in collaboration with the NAACCR Pathology Data WG. This project included the following activities—

• 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).
• Helped develop and test advanced capabilities in the most recent version of the HL7 MWB executable file.
• Released the advanced MWB Conformance Profile to share with states.

Project Status

• 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 with HL7 Version 2.3.1 guidance 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.
• Enhancements and technical corrections to the released profile (as they are found) are ongoing.