Came across this CAP Today Newsbyte that provides some detail on HL7 standards that will be part of the federal government’s final rule on standards and certification under the ARRA Act of 2009.  Below is a link to the Newsbyte and an excerpt…

 HL7 standards and guides in federal meaningful use rule

Health Level Seven International, a global authority on health care information technology interoperability and standards, has announced that five of its standards and guides will be used in the federal government’s final rule on standards and certification criteria for meaningful use under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The final rule includes:

HL7 version 2.5.1, for submitting lab results to public health agencies.  

HL7 version 2.3.1 or version 2.5.1, for submitting information to public health agencies for surveillance or reporting, excluding adverse-event reporting.  

HL7 version 2.3.1 or version 2.5.1, for submitting information to immunization registries as the content exchange standard, and the CDC-maintained HL7 standard code, CVX—Vaccines Administered, as the vocabulary standard.  

HL7 Clinical Document Architecture, Release 2 (CDA) Continuity of Care Document (CCD), a version 3 standard based on the HL7 Reference Information Model, as one of two options for content exchange standards for the receipt of a patient summary record.  

HL7 version 2.5.1, Implementation Guide for Electronic Laboratory Reporting to Public Health, when HL7 version 2.5.1 is used for reporting lab results to public health agencies.