ReferralNet Agent - Configuring Sending

The sending facility of the Agent allows you to monitor specified directories, and send files automatically via ReferralNet.

The sending facility supports two modes:

When a file is created in the specified directory, a window is immediately displayed allowing the user to search for and verify the recipient before sending.

Interactive sending is only available when the Agent is installed in Tray mode.

Files saved in directories configured for non-interactive sending are processed the next time the agent executes a "poll", every 15 minutes by default.

The source file must contain a supported mechanism which allows the Agent to identify the ReferralNet username to deliver the file to.

The Agent supports the following mechanisms:

• Send any file using the filename as the ReferralNet username
• Send to the ReferralNet username specified in the HL7's receiving facility (MSH.6)
• Send to the ReferralNet username specified in the HL7's receiving provider identity (PRD.7.1 where PRD.3 is "RT")
• Send to the ReferralNet username specified in the PIT file's MsgRecipient header

Please refer to your host application's documentation to determine the correct mechanism.

More information on the mechanisms can be found on the ReferralNet Agent Interfacing page.

If the message was unable to be processed, it will be saved to the path specified. If no path is specified, the failed message is deleted. Reasons for failure include failure to save to the destination directory due to permissions, and failure to decrypt the message.

If an SMTP server and email address has been configured on the Settings tab, you can opt to send an email to the administrator when failures occur.

Interactive Mode

Non-Interactive Mode

Enabling this option restricts the Agent to sending files that you have created. This allows for scenarios where multiple workstations are saving files to send to the same directory, and you only want to send files that you saved to that directory.

This option is not available when the Agent is installed as a Service.

Establishing connectivity between disparate systems is a well travelled road that arguably has been solved many times over, unfortunately full interoperability can only be achieved when the actual payload (message data) is standardised and hence understood by both sending and receiving systems. Data interoperability is a complex and long running problem that will eventually come to a conclusion by way of committee, in its absence however, there is a requirement to provision the ability to transform message data at either the sender or receiver side and sometimes both in order to obtain true, useful interoperability that delivers real tangible benefits to the user domain.

The example below illustrates how to use the agent to overcome existing data interoperability issues between participating applications, in this use case we are using the Zedmed clinical application as the sender of a message format that is targeted at a non Zedmed receiving application. Zedmed generates referrals but envelopes the referral information using the PIT specification, unfortunately the recipient application that ultimately needs to consume and process the incoming referral message may not be PIT aware, instead requiring a HL7 2.3 REF I12 message or even a standard Rich Text Format (RTF) document.

The agent facilitates the ability to apply explicit transformations against outgoing message payloads'. In this sample we are instructing the agent to modify the outgoing PIT format into a HL7 2.3 referral message prior to addressing and routing the message through to the associated message recipient. Conversely, Zedmed is not HL7 aware when it comes to referrals, instead requiring referrals to be encoded as PIT. The agent can be instructed to run transformations when receiving to deal with situations such as this, in this case converting an incoming HL7 referral message into a PIT referral.

When a file is created in any of the configured directories that match the filters and are configured for interactive sending, the following window is automatically displayed:

Medical Director Integration, Microsoft Office Integration or Configuring Settings