James,
Thanks. This is very interesting. Although I'm not sure I'm up to learning a whole new complex programming environment, it is intriguing. I'm going to read more about it. The key complexity as far as I'm concerned is extracting the data from the HL7 file.
It's been a few years since I developed my PHP code, but I think I just figured out how the Quest HL7 file was structured and then just wrote some scotch-taped-together code like "if the first line has the word blah in it, then skip ahead x columns and extract the number there". Probably it can be done much more elegantly and efficiently in a better string-processing language like PERL. How this would be done in SSIS is something I would have to look at.
I never thought of using the MS SQL server that AC installs for anything other than AC. I assume one can use it as a regular database, not just as a warehouse for AC's data.
As always, such interesting and helpful comments on this board (I just bought a new scanner, the Fujitsu fi6130z, based on comments from another thread, and my eyes are still popping at the speed).
Michael
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Michael Jacobson, MD
New York, NY
