Patent ID: 7483924

Claim:
A method for converting communications messages, comprising: accepting a plurality of interrelated input messages to be converted, the messages conforming to a Health Level Seven Version 2 (HL7 V2) specification and comprising segments, wherein a given segment appears in at least two of the messages; accepting an Extensible Markup Language (XML) schema, which is derived from a Health Level Seven Version 3 (HL7 V3) specification Reference Information Model (RIM); providing conversion mapping rules, which specify semantic relationships in accordance with the HL7 V3 RIM, for converting first messages conforming to the HL7 V2 specification to second messages conforming to the HL7 V3 specification such that the second messages conform to the semantic relationships; and using the conversion mapping rules, automatically converting the plurality of the interrelated input messages to at least one of a single V3 message and a single V3 document, comprising data elements that conform to the semantic relationships, by mapping segments of the input messages to XML sub-trees of a class in the XML scheme, wherein the given segment in the at least two of the messages is mapped to different parts of an identical sub-tree.