HL7 Integration#

Qliva is an HL7 v2 capable platform — the Australian clinical data exchange standard for pathology result delivery, clinical correspondence, and outbound referrals. This page is written for pathology laboratories, radiology practices, specialist clinics, and clinical messaging networks who want to deliver data to Qliva clinics electronically.

What is HL7 v2?#

HL7 (Health Level Seven) version 2 is the dominant standard for clinical data exchange in Australia and globally. It is a message-based format — clinical data is packaged into structured messages with defined segments and fields, transmitted over secure clinical messaging networks.

HL7 v2 is how:

• Pathology labs send blood test results to GPs and specialists
• Radiology practices send imaging reports
• Specialists send consultation letters back to referring doctors
• Outbound referrals are transmitted between clinicians

If you operate a laboratory or clinical network in Australia, you almost certainly already produce HL7 v2 messages — the Qliva integration is about connecting your existing message pipeline to Qliva clinics.

What Qliva supports#

Structured pathology results (ORU^R01)#

Qliva ingests ORU^R01 observation result messages — the standard HL7 message type for pathology results. Each incoming message is parsed into structured data:

• Individual test observations (OBX segments) are extracted as atomic values with units and reference ranges
• Patient matching is performed against the clinic's patient records
• Results are delivered to the requesting practitioner's Pathology Inbox
• Structured values support trending, AI analysis, and the longitudinal biomarker dashboard

Clinical correspondence (FT/TX documents)#

Letters, referral replies, and specialist correspondence arrive as HL7 messages containing text content (FT/TX segment types). These are routed to the Clinical Mail inbox — a separate inbox from structured pathology results — where practitioners can read and act on correspondence.

Outbound referrals#

Qliva can generate and transmit outbound referral messages, enabling practitioners to send electronic referrals to specialists via the Medical Objects / Capricorn network. This requires bilateral configuration with both Qliva and the receiving specialist's system.

The Medical Objects / Capricorn network#

Qliva's reference HL7 implementation uses Medical Objects / Capricorn — Australia's primary clinical messaging network, used by virtually all pathology labs and a large number of specialists nationally.

Medical Objects provides:

• A managed messaging network with guaranteed delivery
• Authentication and encryption of all message traffic
• Routing to and from clinics based on their unique site identifiers

If your laboratory or network is already connected to Medical Objects / Capricorn, you are very close to being able to deliver results to Qliva clinics.

Infrastructure#

Qliva's HL7 endpoint runs on a dedicated EC2 instance — not on Qliva's web application servers. This is intentional: HL7 message delivery operates on persistent TCP connections with long-lived message queues, which is incompatible with the serverless execution model used by the rest of the platform.

The EC2 instance runs 24/7, processes inbound HL7 messages synchronously, sends ACK responses back to the sending system, and writes structured data to the shared Qliva database. From there, results appear in the clinic's Pathology Inbox in real time.

This architecture means the HL7 integration has no cold-start latency and can handle continuous message streams from high-volume labs.

Connection requirements#

All HL7 connections to Qliva require mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication. This means:

• Both the sending system and Qliva must present valid certificates during the TLS handshake
• Unauthenticated HL7 connections are rejected at the network layer
• Certificate management is handled as part of the technical onboarding process

mTLS is the Australian clinical standard for HL7 message transport and is a non-negotiable security requirement.

Message routing#

In a multi-tenant platform, incoming HL7 messages must be routed to the correct clinic. Qliva uses a site identifier embedded in the message header (the HD identifier in the MSH segment) to resolve the receiving tenant.

Each clinic that connects to the Medical Objects network is assigned a unique identifier. Messages stamped with that identifier are delivered exclusively to that clinic's inbox.

Who this is for#

This capability is relevant if you are:

• A pathology laboratory that wants to deliver results electronically to Qliva clinics rather than by fax or PDF
• A radiology practice that wants to send reports and imaging summaries to Qliva practitioners
• A specialist clinic that generates consultation letters and wants to deliver them electronically to referring GPs and naturopaths using Qliva
• A clinical messaging network that routes HL7 traffic between health providers

Getting started#

To deliver HL7 data to Qliva clinics, contact support@qliva.com.au. The technical onboarding process covers:

1. Confirming compatibility between your HL7 message format and Qliva's parser
2. mTLS certificate exchange and network configuration
3. Configuring your system to route messages to the correct Qliva endpoint
4. Conformance testing with sample messages before go-live
5. Monitoring and alerting for message delivery confirmation

Qliva's team manages the technical configuration — you do not need to understand Qliva's internal architecture to complete the integration. What you need is your existing HL7 message specification, your network's mTLS certificates, and a point of contact for the technical setup.