HL7 Developer Toolkit

Features

Tools for reading and debugging HL7 v2

Available means it works today. Experimental means it works but its output depends on your own environment and needs review.

Message inspection Available

Turn a wall of pipes into something you can read. The Inspector splits an HL7 v2 message into segments, fields, components and subcomponents using the delimiters declared in the MSH segment.

Open Message inspection

Available in this build

  • Delimiters read from MSH-1 and MSH-2, not assumed
  • Segments, fields, repetitions, components and subcomponents
  • Empty fields keep their positions
  • CR, LF and CRLF line endings
  • Parsing errors and structural warnings shown separately
  • Samples for ADT, ORM and ORU (fictional data)

Planned

  • Escape sequence decoding
  • Version- and profile-specific field names
  • Multi-message files
  • Optional profile-based checks, clearly separated from structural parsing

Field navigation Available

Read values by their HL7 address, such as PID-5.1 or OBX-5, instead of counting delimiters. Move between segments and see where each value sits.

Open Field navigation

Available in this build

  • Copyable paths such as PID-5.1, OBX[2]-3.2 and PID-5[2].1
  • Search across segment IDs, paths and values
  • Repeated segments numbered in order

Planned

  • Field names and descriptions by HL7 version and profile
  • Jump-to-path box
  • Bookmarks for frequently inspected fields

Message Diff Available

Compare two messages segment by segment and field by field. Repeated segments such as OBX are compared by occurrence, and the result is a textual comparison: it never claims two messages mean the same thing.

Open Message Diff

Available in this build

  • Segment order, counts per segment ID and field values
  • Differences down to component and subcomponent, with copyable paths
  • Added, removed, changed and moved segments highlighted
  • Ignore rules for fields, components or whole segments (Pro plan)

Planned

  • Aligned pairing for repeated segments is experimental
  • Multi-message files
  • Export of a diff report

HL7-to-JSON Available

Structured JSON that keeps segment order, repeated segments, empty values and repeated fields, with a documented schema. Copy it or download it.

Open HL7-to-JSON

Available in this build

  • Full and compact styles
  • Every value kept as exact text; rebuilding the message from the JSON reproduces the original segments
  • Documented JSON Schema (hl7-json/1)
  • Copy and download

Planned

  • Field names from a chosen HL7 version or profile
  • Optional CSV export
  • Multi-message files

Mirth Connect helper tools Experimental

Choose a segment, field, component and subcomponent and get an illustrative field reference plus a starter JavaScript snippet for a Mirth transformer. Output must be reviewed and tested in your own Mirth environment.

Open Mirth Connect helper tools

Available in this build

  • Field-path references for any segment, including OBR and OBX
  • Templates: read, channel map, set, compare, loops
  • Full set (Pro): find a segment by code, lookup tables, a safe-read helper
  • Never connects to Mirth or runs code

Planned

  • Output depends on your Mirth version and channel settings, so it stays experimental
  • More templates

How the tools are designed

Nothing is kept

Messages are parsed in memory and discarded. They are not stored in a database or session, written to application logs, or sent to third parties.

Honest about scope

The tools do not claim certification, standards validation or regulatory compliance.

Built for troubleshooting

Each tool is designed around a question developers ask when an interface misbehaves.

What this is not. It is not a certified validator, an interface engine, or a tool for clinical decisions. It is a developer aid for reading and troubleshooting messages.

See the preview for yourself

Open the Inspector with a synthetic message, or read the HL7 v2 basics in the documentation.

Try HL7 Inspector Documentation