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9.1 PURPOSE

This chapter currently supports document management. In the future, it is intended also to support the data exchange needs of applications supporting other medical record functions, including chart location and tracking, deficiency analysis, consents, and release of information. The main purpose of the medical record is to produce an accurate, legal, and legible document that serves as a comprehensive account of healthcare services provided to a patient.

This chapter defines the transactions at the seventh level, i.e., the abstract messages. Various schemes may be used to generate the actual characters that comprise the messages according to the communications environment. The HL7 Encoding Rules will be used where there is not a complete Presentation Layer. This is described in Chapter 1, "Relationship to Other Protocols." The examples in this chapter were constructed using the HL7 Encoding Rules.

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