Unofficial Mirth Connect Developer's Guide

Shamil Nizamov

Unofficial Mirth Connect v3.0

Developer’s Guide* * Preview Edition

Introduction 2

Copyright Page

Copyright © 2013 by Shamil Nizamov

Cover image copyright © 2013 by Shamil Nizamov

All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or

transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author.

Mirth Connect is the trademark of the Mirth Corporation Company. HL7 and Health Level

Seven are registered trademarks of Health Level Seven International. All other marks are

property of their respective owners.

Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved.

The companies, organizations, products, domain names, email addresses, logos, people,

places, and/or data mentioned herein in examples are fictitious. No association with any

real company, organization, product, domain name, email address, logo, person, place,

or data is intended or should be inferred.

This book expresses the author’s views and opinions. The information contained in this

book is provided without any express, statutory, or implied warranties. Neither the

author, Mirth Corporation, Health Level Seven International, nor resellers, or distributors

will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused either directly or

indirectly by this book.

* This is a preview edition of the book.

3 Introduction

Contents

PART 1 MIRTH CONNECT BASICS

Chapter 1 Getting Started ................................................................................................................. 11

Installation ........................................................................................................................ 11

Mirth Connect Administrator ........................................................................................... 12

Chapter 2 What is a Channel? ........................................................................................................... 14

Connectors ........................................................................................................................ 15

Filters ................................................................................................................................ 15

Transformers ..................................................................................................................... 16

Scripts................................................................................................................................ 17

Chapter 3 Creating a Channel ........................................................................................................... 19

Source Connector ............................................................................................................. 20

Destination Connectors .................................................................................................... 21

Testing the Channel .......................................................................................................... 25

Global Scripts .................................................................................................................... 28

Code Templates ................................................................................................................ 31

PART II GENERIC ELIGIBILITY SERVICE IMPLEMENTATION

Chapter 4 Generic Eligibility Service Introduction ........................................................................... 34

Eligibility Service Introduction .......................................................................................... 34

Scenario Overview ............................................................................................................ 35

Messages and Interactions Overview ............................................................................... 36

Eligibility Query Channels Overview ................................................................................. 37

Chapter 5 Sender Channel ................................................................................................................ 40

Summary Tab .................................................................................................................... 40

Source Tab ........................................................................................................................ 42

Destinations Tab ............................................................................................................... 42

Channel Implementation Verification .............................................................................. 45

Chapter 6 HL7v2 to HL7v3 Transformation Channel ........................................................................ 48

Summary Tab .................................................................................................................... 48

Introduction 4

Source Tab ........................................................................................................................ 49


Code Templates ................................................................................................................ 58

Scripts................................................................................................................................ 58


Chapter 7 Logging Channel ............................................................................................................... 60

Summary Tab .................................................................................................................... 60

Source Tab ........................................................................................................................ 61


Code Templates ................................................................................................................ 67

Global Scripts .................................................................................................................... 67


Chapter 8 HL7v3 Verification Channel .............................................................................................. 71

Summary Tab .................................................................................................................... 72

Source Tab ........................................................................................................................ 72


Code Templates ................................................................................................................ 80

Global Scripts .................................................................................................................... 81

Scripts................................................................................................................................ 82


Chapter 9 Response Channel ............................................................................................................ 85

Summary Tab .................................................................................................................... 85

Source Tab ........................................................................................................................ 86


Scripts................................................................................................................................ 91


Chapter 10 HL7v3 to HL7v2 Transformation Channel ....................................................................... 93

Summary Tab .................................................................................................................... 93

Source Tab ........................................................................................................................ 94



5 Introduction

PART III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IMPLEMENTATION

Chapter 11 Acknowledgements Introduction .................................................................................... 99

Scenario Overview ............................................................................................................ 99

Acknowledgement Channels Overview .......................................................................... 100

Chapter 12 HL7v2 ACK Channel ........................................................................................................ 102

Summary Tab .................................................................................................................. 102

Source Tab ...................................................................................................................... 103

Destinations Tab ............................................................................................................. 103

Scripts.............................................................................................................................. 104

Chapter 13 HL7v3 ACK Channel ........................................................................................................ 106

Summary Tab .................................................................................................................. 106

Source Tab ...................................................................................................................... 106

Destinations Tab ............................................................................................................. 107

Scripts.............................................................................................................................. 108

Chapter 14 HL7v3 Verification Channel ............................................................................................ 110

Destinations Tab ............................................................................................................ 110

Code Templates .............................................................................................................. 112

Scripts.............................................................................................................................. 114

Source Tab ...................................................................................................................... 114

Chapter 15 HL7v2 to HL7v3 Transformation Channel ACK ............................................................. 116


Code Templates .............................................................................................................. 119

Scripts.............................................................................................................................. 120

Source Tab ...................................................................................................................... 121

Channel Implementation Verification ............................................................................ 121

Chapter 16 Sender Channel ACK ...................................................................................................... 123


Channel Implementation Verification ............................................................................ 124

Introduction 6

PART IV DEBUGGING JAVASCRIPT

Chapter 17 Debugging JavaScript in Mirth Connect ........................................................................ 126

Built in Logger function .................................................................................................. 126

Rhino JavaScript Debugger in Standalone Mode ............................................................ 127

Rhino JavaScript Debugger in Embedded Mode............................................................. 128

Eclipse JSDT Debugger in Embedded Mode ................................................................... 132

PART V APPENDICES

A: Eligibility Query Request (QUCR_IN200101) template .............................................. 138

B: Eligibility Query Results (QUCR_IN210101) template ................................................ 139

C: MS Access Log database structure ............................................................................. 140

D: PostgreSQL Eligibility database structure................................................................... 140

E: XSLT to transform from HLv3 to HL7v2 ....................................................................... 141

F: JavaScriptTask.java ...................................................................................................... 142

G: Archives content ......................................................................................................... 144

7 Introduction

Introduction

Introduction As Mirth Corporation says on their web-site, “Mirth Connect is the Swiss Army knife of

healthcare integration engines, specifically designed for HL7 message integration. It

provides the necessary tools for developing, testing, deploying, and monitoring interfaces.

And because it’s open source, you get all of the advantages of a large community of users

with commercial quality support.”

In addition to that “The 2012 HL7 Interface Technology Survey Results” show that Mirth

Connect is one of the fast growing healthcare messaging platforms due to open source

paradigm, robust functionality for HL7 messaging and X12 documents. Mirth Connect

also speeds up the development of interfaces for data exchange across different formats

and diverse healthcare systems environment.

The focus of this book is to introduce a version 3.x of the Mirth Connect to the point

when readers will gain confidence to start building their own healthcare data exchange

interfaces.

As you read this book, you will be implementing fictitious Eligibility Query Service. Each

connection point (channel) is explained in a separate chapter, which in turn provides

step-by-step instruction how to create and code data transformation rules.

This book is written using the Mirth Connect 3.0.0.6931 version of the product.

Consequently, other releases may include new features, or features used in this book

may change or disappear. Be aware that you might also notice some differences

between screen shots provided here and actual ones.

Who is this book for

I wrote this book primarily for application developers and system integrators who have

found the online Mirth Connect documentation lacking and needed a guidebook that

explained things in more detailed and organized way.

In a book of this size, I cannot cover every feature that Mirth Connect v3.x or previous

versions have; consequently I assume you have some familiarity with Mirth Connect

already.

http://corehealthtechnologies.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2012-HL7-Interface-Technology-Survey-Results.pdf

Introduction 8

Assumption

This book assumes that you are dealing with applications using message-oriented

middleware products and expects that you have at least a minimal understanding of

Web service technologies including, but are not limited to, XML, XML Schemas, XPath,

XSL Transformation and SOAP/WSDL.

Before you start reading this book, you should have a basic knowledge of JavaScript and

Java; MS Access and PostgreSQL databases from a database administrator perspective;

and familiar with operating system environment variables settings.

You also have basic knowledge of HL7, the standard that is being used to exchange

healthcare data, both version 2 and version 3.

Who should not read this book?

As mentioned earlier, the purpose of this book is to provide the reader with a high-level

preview of the capabilities and features associated with Mirth Connect v3.0. This book is

not intended to be a step-by-step comprehensive guide or substitute of any kind to

original training and certification programs provided by the Mirth Corporation.

This book is also not a tutorial on a specific messaging or middleware technology

implementation. All examples included in this book are for illustrative purposes only. If

you are interested in learning more about any of specific technologies or products,

please refer to one of the many on-line resources.

This book does not cover any specific installation, configuration, deployment and

monitoring activities for system administrators.

Errata and Book Support

I have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this book and its companion content.

If you find an error, please report through email - [email protected].

Warning and Disclaimer

The purpose of this book is to educate and entertain. Every effort has been made to

make this book as complete and as accurate as possible, but no warranty or fitness is

implied.

The information is provided on an “as is” basis. The author shall have neither liability nor

responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or

9 Introduction

alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book or

from the use of software mentioned in this book. The information, methods and

techniques described by the author are based on his own experience. They may not work

for you and no recommendation is made to follow the same course of action. No

representation is made that following the advice in this book will work in your case.

The author is not an employee or a representative of the Mirth Corporation and never

has been, and author’s views and opinions are not necessarily those of the Mirth

Corporation. This book is not based on trainings or certifications provided by the Mirth

Corporation.

This book contains links to third-party Web sites that are not under the control of the

author, and the author is not responsible for the content of any linked site. If you access

a third-party website mentioned in this book, then you do so at your own risk. The

author provides these links only as a convenience, and the inclusion of the link does not

imply that the author endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content of those

third-party sites.

Furthermore, the book contains information on the subject only up to the published

date.

PART I – MIRTH CONNECT BASICS 10

PART I – MIRTH CONNECT BASICS

Mirth Connect Basics

CHAPTER 1 Getting Started

CHAPTER 2 What is a Channel?

CHAPTER 3 Creating a Channel

11 PART I – MIRTH CONNECT BASICS

CHAPTER 1 Getting Started

Getting Started his chapter outlines the Mirth Connect basic installation procedure. All examples in

this book are based on a Windows version of the Mirth Connect RC1 v3.0, which you

can download at http://www.mirthcorp.com/community/downloads.

Make sure your computer meets minimum system requirements before you start:

Sun Java JRE 1.5/5.0 or newer;

1 GB of RAM is recommended;

A web browser.

Installation

There are two possible ways to install the Mirth Connect based on what package you

have downloaded or what package is available on the website. In one case, the package

is an archive of all files and classes that you need to run Mirth Connect on your

computer. You simply unzip and copy such package to an appropriate folder, for

example C:\Program Files\Mirth Connect\. In another case, there is a GUI based

installer that you just start and go through the steps in the installation wizard. The

installation process itself is quite straight forward.

In both cases what will be installed are Mirth Connect Server, Mirth Connect Server

Manager, Mirth Connect Administrator and Mirth Connect Command Line Interface.

During the installation you have to decide which port will be used by the Mirth Connect.

By default it is 8080 for the unsecure communication and 8443 for the SSL connection.

You might change it later using the Mirth Connect Server Manager.

To verify the installation:

Launch the Mirth Connect Server either through the Mirth Connect Server Manager

or Mirth Connect Command Line;

Open the web browser and type localhost:8080 in the address bar;

Click Access Secure Site under the Web Dashboard Sign in;

Type “admin” for the user name and repeat “admin” as the password, click Sign in.

If you see the Dashboard statistics page with, most likely, no channels available, you have

successfully done the installation and ready to continue.

T


If not, follow this link to troubleshoot -

http://www.mirthcorp.com/.../mirth/Mirth+Connect+FAQ.

Configuration

The Mirth Connect Server Manager can be used as a single point to launch Mirth

Connect Service, configure ports, allocated memories, and database connections; but

fully fledged configuration description goes beyond the scope of this book.

Here is only a recommended step to add a path to the \custom-lib folder to your

operating system’s CLASSPATH environment variable. This is the folder where you put

your Java classes, libraries and other required files.

Previous versions of Mirth Connect were using port 1099 for viewing statistics though

JMX (Java Management Extensions) and RMI (Remote Method Invocation) interfaces. It is

not confirmed if this port is still in use. Anyway, if any of your applications or firewall is

utilizing ports 8080, 8443 or 1099 you can either change that by using Mirth Connect

Server Manager or manually in the configuration files located in

\conf\mirth.properties. Restart the Mirth Connect for changes to make effect.

Mirth Connect Administrator

The Mirth Connect Administrator is a Java application that is not explicitly installed on a

local computer by default in a distributed environment, and need to be downloaded

from the Mirth Connect Server. The reason for that is to install the Mirth Connect

Administrator that matches the version of the Mirth Connect Server.

In order to download the Mirth Connect Administrator:

Start the Mirth Connect Server if it is not already running as the service;

Open the web browser;

Type localhost:8080 in the address bar;

Click Launch Mirth Connect Administrator under the Mirth Connect Administrator;

Click Ok to open the webstart.jnlp;

Type “admin” for the user name and repeat “admin” as the password in the Mirth

Connect Login pop-up window, click Login.

If everything is done correctly, every time you login, you will see the Dashboard as an

initial screen. The Dashboard displays two areas of information:

Channels status and statistics - the number of messages Received, Filtered,

Queued, Sent, and Errored. The Dashboard Tasks area on the navigation bar on the

http://www.mirthcorp.com/.../mirth/Mirth+Connect+FAQ


left side has essential for channels development menu items such as Refresh, Send

Messages, Remove All Messages. Same menu items can be accessed faster by the

right-click on a channel row.

Logs – Server Log and Connection Log. The former - Server Log - is used a lot to

debug channels development. Double-clicking on a Server Log entry brings pop-up

window to view and copy the entire log entry content. The Server Log is stored by

the Mirth Connect Server in the memory and therefore closing and opening the

Mirth Connect Administrator brings back all entries not previously explicitly purged.

To clear the Server Log click Clear Displayed Log under the Server Log or Connection

Log area.

Logging Level

Channel’s log level can be configured manually by changing \conf\log4j.properties

entries. Available options are: ERROR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG, TRACE with DEBUG selected

by default. Log levels may be configured separately for filters, transformers,

postprocessors and other scripts that will be explained later in this book.

FIGURE 1-1 Mirth Connect Administrator window when launched with no channels available

Familiarize yourself with other navigation items and tabs since this will be the main tool

to develop channels throughout this book.


CHAPTER 2 What is a Channel?

What is a Channel? he Channel is an essential part of the Mirth Connect and can be seen as one to many

abstract unidirectional pipes to decouple components from each other to transfer

healthcare data between two or more applications. The channels architecture

implemented in the Mirth Connect allows dividing a large message processing task into

a sequence of smaller independent steps. This affords developers the flexibility for

dependency, maintenance or performance. Some of the processing tasks can even be

external to the Mirth Connect and developed independently.

FIGURE 2-1 Mirth Connect abstract channel architecture

In general, each Channel consists of connectors both inbound and outbound, filters and

transformers. The Connector that receives inbound messages from the Sending

Application is called Source. Similarly, the Connector that sends outbound messages is

called Destination. From the Source Connector the data is passed through the channel,

where filters and transformers perform operations on the data, for example routing the

message to one or another Destination Connector, and transforming the data

representation. Deciding a channel is when wearing an analyst's hat comes into play.

Before you create a new channel, you need to elicit following requirements:

Type of the Application the Channel reads data from (Source Connector type);

Type of the Application the Channel sends data to (Destination Connector type);

Type and the format of the inbound message;

Type and the format of the outbound message(s);

Mapping table(s) between inbound and outbound messages (Transformation).

T


Connectors

In terms of Enterprise Integration, the Connector is a Message Endpoint that specifies a

particular way or, better saying, protocol the Mirth Connect should be using to

communicate with external application or another Mirth Connect channel.

The Mirth Connect supports sending and receiving messages over a variety of

Connectors listed here in no particular order:

TCP/MLLP;

Database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, ODBC);

File (local file system and network shares);

PDF and RTF documents;

JMS;

FTP/SFTP;

HTTP (note that HTTPS is not supported in the free version);

SMTP;

SOAP (over HTTP).

The Connector receiving the data is called a Reader, for example the MLLP Reader.

Consequently, the Connector that sends the data is called a Writer, the Database Writer

as an example.

Connector types are configured under Source and Destination tabs of the Channel, which

will be explained later in this chapter. It should be obvious, that whereas some settings

are common across all Connectors, some are unique to a specific Connector type.

If connectors, shipped with the Mirth Connect installation package, are not enough you

can develop your own one (thus the custom HTTPS connector implementation).

However, templates and developer’s level documentation for such development are out

of scope of this edition of the book.

Filters

In a real world scenario, when numerous applications and channels are connected, the

Channel may receive messages from several sources, and therefore these messages may

have to be processed differently based on the message type or other criteria.

There are two paradigms to solve this problem, thus by a Router or by a Filter:


Router connects to multiple outbound channels. The key benefit of using the Router

is that the decision criteria for the destination of a message are maintained in a

single location.

Filter, this is what Mirth Connect uses, is built in into a message processing

mechanism and is responsible for determining whether the message should be

processed or not. The Filter does that by inspecting message properties (segments or

elements) without removing the message from the message queue. If the message

cannot be consumed by this particular pipe it is returned back to the queue

unchanged for another pipe to check out.

Filters can be as simple as specific field comparison against a hard coded value or as

complex as JavaScript scripts and external Java classes. Filter can even be omitted at all

allowing all messages to path through.

So if a single Channel should process more than one type of messages, you can create

any number of separate pipes (they are called Destinations) and specify none, one or

more filters for each of them.

Transformers

More often than not, messages are sent between legacy systems, custom applications,

and third-party solutions, each of which is built around a proprietary data model. Even

systems that claim to support a single standard may place specific requirements on the

data format and content. With an every new business requirement proposed, if we could

bring all legacy systems to a single format that would solve our issues. Unfortunately, for

the most legacy systems data format, content or data sequence changes are difficult and

risky, and simply not feasible.

How to communicate data using different formats then? In the Mirth Connect this is

done by a message Transformer that translates one data format into another. As a result,

a destination application expects to receive messages it understands which can be later

converted and stored in the application’s internal data format.

The Mirth Connect allows the message translation to occur at different levels, as well as

to chain message transformers to achieve a required result.

Supported Transformers are:

Message Builder is used to map segments of the inbound message to segments in

the outbound message.


Mapper maps segments of the inbound message to internal Mirth Connect variables.

These variables may be used later.

External Script, as the name suggests, employs external JavaScripts to transform or

map the data.

XSLT Step is to utilize the XSL transformation.

JavaScript, along with the External Script, is where the flexibility comes into play.

Here any types of (Rhino) Java Scripts and Java codes can be used.

Scripts

Channels also support unique features called scripts to enhance the message processing

logic. Scripts apply to a channel itself and all messages that are passing through.

These scripts are:

Deploy script is executed each time when the Mirth Connect Server starts or a

Channel is redeployed. This is a best place to initialize variables or create class

objects.

Attachment script deals with a message in a native format and allows extracting a

part of the message to store it as an attachment or irrevocably modify a message.

Preprocessor script also allows handling each message in a native format before

Mirth Connect starts translating it into the internal format that is XML.

Postprocessor script is executed after the message has been successfully sent.

Shutdown script is launched each time when the Mirth Connect Server stops. This is

the place to release memories previously allocated by classes required for the

Channel.

Scripts are performed in a following order:

1. Deploy (once, when Mirth Connect is started or a Channel is re/deployed) ;

2. Attachment script;

3. Preprocessor script;

4. Source Connector Filters script;

5. Source Connector Transformer script or mapping;

6. Destination 1 Connector Filters script;

7. Destination 1 Connector Transformer script or mapping;

8. Destination N Connector Filters script;

9. Destination N Connector Transformer script or mapping;

10. Response 1 Transformer script or mapping;

11. Response N transformer script or mapping;

12. Postprocessor script;


13. Shutdown (once, when a channel is undeployed).

When you create a Channel, by default, all scripts are empty and do nothing.

It is obvious that Deploy and Shutdown scripts are performed only once, when the

Channel is deployed or undeployed respectively. All others are performed every time a

message is sent through the Channel or acknowledgement is received. Further we will

explore each of these steps in detail.


G: Archives content

There are two archives provided with this book each of which contains a complete set of

files required for Part II and Part III implementations.

Eligibility.6931.NoNACK.zip

Folder Files Comment

Channels Code Template.xml

Global Script.xml

HL7v3 Verification.xml

Logging Channel.xml

Response Channel.xml

Sender Channel.xml

v2 - v3 Transformation.xml

v3 - v2 Transformation Channel.xml

Channels, code templates and

global scripts for Part II

implementation.

custom-lib .... Custom-lib folder for Mirth Connect

Server installation.

DB PostgreSQL-Eligibility DB.sql

QBP_Log.accdb

PostgreSQL patients database

MS Access Log database

HL7v2\Samples QBP-45_Malformed.hl7

QBP-45_Request.hl7

RSP-45_Error.hl7

RSP-45_Success.hl7

HL7v2\Templates RSP-45_Template.hl7

RSP-45_XML.xml

HL7v2\XSLT QUCR-RSP.xslt

HL7v3 NE2012 .... Schemas for HL7v3 messages

HL7v3 NE2012\-

Samples_Annotated

QUCR_IN200101UV01_Request_Annotated.xml

QUCR_IN210101UV01_Error_Annoteated.xml

QUCR_IN210101UV01_Success_Annotated.xml

HL7v3 NE2012\-

Templates

MCCI_IN000002_template.xml

QUCR_IN200101_template.xml


Eligibility.6931.ACK-NACK.zip

Folder Files Comment

Channels Code Template.xml

Global Script.xml

HL7v2 ACK Channel.xml

HL7v3 ACK Channel.xml

Logging Channel.xml

Sender Channel.xml

v2 - v3 Transformation Channel.xml

v3 Verification Channel.xml

Channels, code templates and

global scripts for Part III

implementation.

custom-lib .... Custom-lib folder for Mirth Connect

Server installation.


DB PostgreSQL-Eligibility DB.sql

QBP_Log.accdb

PostgreSQL patients database

MS Access Log database

HL7v2\Samples ACK-A01_Negative.hl7

ACK-A01_Positive.hl7

QBP-45_Malformed.hl7

QBP-45_Request.hl7

RSP-45_Error.hl7

RSP-45_Success.hl7

HL7v2\Templates RSP-45_Template.hl7

RSP-45_XML.xml

HL7v2\XSLT QUCR-RSP.xslt

HL7v3 NE2012 .... Schemas for HL7v3 messages

HL7v3 NE2012\-

Samples_Annotated

MCCI_IN000002UV01.xml

QUCR_IN200101UV01_Request_Annotated.xml

QUCR_IN210101UV01_Error_Annoteated.xml

QUCR_IN210101UV01_Success_Annotated.xml

HL7v3 NE2012-

\Templates

MCCI_IN000002_template.xml



Other chapters, not included to this preview, cover implementation of

schema and schematron validation, XSL transformation, database

connect pool creation, acknowledgements implementation,

debugging and other related topics.

The rest of the book, including source codes and all related files,

can be downloaded from http://mirthconnect.isarp.com

http://mirthconnect.isarp.com/