Translation between HL7 v2.5 and CCR message formats (For communication between hospital and personal health record systems)

The HL7 v2.x set of healthcare messaging standards are the predominant ones used by healthcare institutions in much of the world. They have been designed for managing healthcare and so provide a complete set of information and messages necessary for the provision of care. More recently the Continuity of Care Record (CCR) standard was proposed as a digital form of referrals; it describes the condition of a person - a snapshot - at the time of the referral. It offers a light-weight, easily implemented approach, and its focus is on the exchange of health summaries. Personal Health Record (PHR) systems such as Google Health and Microsoft Health Vault use the CCR format for input (and output), which is correct, as such systems collect snapshots of health rather than healthcare management information. For healthcare institutions, which use HL7, to effectively communicate with PHR systems which use the CCR, there must be a translation between these two standard formats. We present such a translation; it is in the public domain, so is open for improvements from knowledgeable institutions and individuals.