Hi Mario,

My name is Jeff Mathes, and I am the Interface Development Group Manager here at Amazing Charts. I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself to you and the rest of the user board, as well as answer your questions.

The software that our laboratory and radiology partners install at the practice is indeed to secure transmission of the data. Typically, they tend to install and setup either an SFTP server (which stands for Secure File Transfer Protocol) or a VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection. Both allow for the secure transmission of the HL7 result files between the practice and the lab/rad office.

Establishing these connections between the practice and the lab/rad are the one part of the interface process that we don?t get directly involved with. We have found that the process is much more efficient that way. The vast majority of our lab/rad partners have experienced IT staff that have prior experience setting up just these types of connections.

You were also spot on in assuming the piece that needs to be activated in Amazing Charts is an HL7 interface engine. We store and transmit lab/rad results using standard HL7 text files ? we do not currently use XML. Our specifications are currently based on HL7 Version 2.3, which is what we endeavor to base all of our interfaces on. However, as is true everywhere in the world of HL7, everyone always seems to have their own ?flavor? of HL7. That is why you see such a vast list of interfaces in the program ? we tailor all of our interfaces to each partner to ensure the best possible accuracy and ease of connectivity. You can turn on as many of the interfaces as you want or need ? you are not forced into using only one specific interface to communicate with one specific lab/rad partner.

We are always looking to expand our interface library, and would be happy to build an interface between Amazing Charts and the State of Texas Lab Services Section. If you could let me know a little more about what kind of information you are looking to receive from them, as well as provide me with any contact information you may have for someone there, we will reach out to them to get the process started. We currently have several other interfaces underway in our development queue, but the sooner we get it started and placed into the queue, the sooner we can get it completed and available to you and the rest of our practices!

While we are on the topic of interfaces, I?d also like to share some exciting news with the user board. We have begun development on what we are calling our Interface Hub. As the name implies, we are building a powerful service that will serve as a "Hub" - a central clearinghouse between all of our practices and lab, rad, and other third party partners. We are very excited about the Hub for a number of reasons, some of which include:

- The Hub will streamline the process of establishing connectivity. Future versions of the Amazing Charts software will automatically know how to connect with the Hub, and connectivity with our partners will only have to be established one time. Once we have that connection in place, they will be able to transmit messages to the Hub ? which your version of Amazing Charts will retrieve automatically for you to process at your convenience ? for any and all of the practices that we have in common.

- The platform we are building the Hub on will provide us not only with the ability to more rapidly develop new interfaces; we will also be able to offer much more flexibility in the versions of HL7 we will be able to ingest. We will be able to transform any flavor of HL7 into a flavor that the Amazing Charts program will be able to work with ? all done instantly on the Hub and transparently to the end users. This capability will allow us to interface with just about any partner, as well as give us the tools to more easily update our existing interfaces as new standards emerge.

We anticipate initial development of the Hub to be finished in January 2012, at which point we will be able to begin developing and rolling out interfaces that will take advantage of all it has to offer. To say we are excited to start doing so would be a gross understatement!

I hope this answered your questions sufficiently. If you or anyone else here on the user board have any further questions or comments at any time, please feel free to contact me.

- Jeff