HL7 Scheduling Information Unsolicited (SIU) messages are used to exchange patient appointment schedule information between clinical and administrative systems. Typically, HL7 SIU messages are generated by the hospital scheduling system and sent to, in this case, the Awell Care system.
Setting up and integration with SIU messages is a powerful mechanism:
Care flows can be driven by the SIU messages (eg: start a care care flow when an appointment was scheduled)
There are major efficiency gains as there's no need for your health care professionals to manage care flows manually
Different types of SIU messages
Mainly 3 type of SIU messages are used for care flow management:
SIU S12 - Appointment creation (create)
SIU S14 - Appointment modification (update)
SIU S15 - Appointment cancellation (delete)
Based on the type of SIU message a care flow can respectively be started, modified or cancelled.
General overview
SIU messages are usually processed by Mirth. This can be a Mirth server on the hospital side or on the Awell side (see "Integration set-up").
The received SIU messages contain several variables that can be used in the care flow (e.g. surgery date, surgeon, appointment code, etc...). These variables are essential "information parameters" to drive a care flow.
Depending on the status of the message a care flow can be started, updated or cancelled. This is done via the Awell API. All necessary information on the Awell API can be found here.
Integration set-up
There are two main set-up options for an SIU integration with Awell Care.
Option 1 - Hospital processes the SIU messages
All SIU messages originate from the hospital. The hospital can use their hospital Mirth (or any other technical set-up) to filter the necessary SIU messages and make the necessary requests to the Awell API to create, update or stop a care flow.
Benefits:
Hospital has full control over the set-up
Minimal intervention needed from Awell Health so very cost-friendly
Drawbacks:
Requires significant effort from hospital IT
Option two - Awell Health processes the SIU messages
The SIU messages are accessible by Awell's Mirth server it processes the messages to start, update or cancel care flows by making API calls to the Awell API.
Benefits:
Less effort needed from hospital IT
Drawbacks:
Higher integration cost
Here an example can be found of an option two set-up. More example swimlanes can be provided on demand.
Example
S12 message
Given that an SIU message with status S12 for orthopaedic surgery with appointment code 123 is received.
Then a POST request is made to the Awell API to create the patient.
Then a POST request is made to start the care flow.
Then a POST request is made to attach the baseline information parameters (eg: surgery date) to the care flow
S14 message
Given that an SIU message with status S14 for orthopaedic surgery with appointment code 123 is received.
Then a GET request needs to be made to the Awell API to verify if the care flow already exists. By using the unique appointment code that was added previously to the baseline information of the care flow, we know what care flow to search for.
Then a POST request needs to be made to the Awell API to update the baseline information according to the information that was received in the SIU message.
S15 message
Given that an SIU message with status S15 for orthopaedic surgery with appointment code 123 is received.
Then a GET request needs to be made to the Awell API to verify if the care flow exists. By using the unique appointment code that was added previously to the baseline information of the care flow, we know what care flow to search for.
When the care flow doesn't exist
Then nothing needs to be done
When the care flow exists
Then we do a POST request to the Awell API to cancel the care flow
FAQ
What if not all patient information is present in the SIU message?
An additional request needs to be sent to the hospital's ADT server or web service to retrieve all missing patient information.
How does Awell Health's Mirth access the SIU messages from the hospital?
The SIU messages can be stored on our RDP server (which we have already available in most hospitals for EMR integrations)
Are there any alternative formats that Awell Health can work with besides SIU messages?
Yes! Alternatively, we could also work with for example a CSV file that is made available to us on a regular basis. We're always open to discuss and explore new formats as well.