In mirth connect convert hl7 datetime in local time to iso date in UTC

Question

I have the following code that parses fields from an HL7 2.1 message, it converts it to a JSON object for further processing in Logstash/ElasticSearch/Kibana my issue is how to correctly parse the date-time stamps from HL7 local time to a UTC ISO8691 date time in a transformer. I have included the entire code of the transformer.

The ConvertToISODate function is a hack to simply create a ISO Date time string, but it doesn't convert it to UTC, which I need.

function ConvertToISODate(hl7Date) {
    // this function will return an ISO formatted date string from the insanity that is hl7 dates
    // this function is also insane but the sane ways didn't seem to work
    var outdate = '';
    //4 year
    outdate += hl7Date.substring(0,4) + '-';
    //2 month
    outdate += hl7Date.substring(4,6) + '-';
    //2 day
    outdate += hl7Date.substring(6,8) + 'T';
    //2 hour
    outdate += hl7Date.substring(8,10) + ':';
    //2 minute
    outdate += hl7Date.substring(10,12) + ':';
    //2 second assume start of minute as not precise
    outdate += '00.000Z';
    return outdate;

}

function Group(obrseg) {
    this.seqno = obrseg['OBR.1']['OBR.1.1'].toString();
    if (this.seqno == '') {
        this.seqno = '1';
    } else {
        this.seqno = this.seqno;
    }
    this.reptno = obrseg['OBR.3']['OBR.3.1'].toString();
    this.reqno = obrseg['OBR.3']['OBR.3.1'].toString().substr(0, 10);
    this.test = obrseg['OBR.4']['OBR.4.1'].toString(); // TODO what about s/a's ?
    this.groupname = obrseg['OBR.4']['OBR.4.2'].toString();
    this.priority = obrseg['OBR.5']['OBR.5.1'].toString();
    this.reg_dt = ConvertToISODate(obrseg['OBR.6']['OBR.6.1'].toString());
    this.requester_id = obrseg['OBR.16']['OBR.16.1'].toString();
    this.requester_surname = obrseg['OBR.16']['OBR.16.2'].toString();
    this.requester_firstname = obrseg['OBR.16']['OBR.16.3'].toString();
    this.rept_dt = ConvertToISODate(obrseg['OBR.22']['OBR.22.1'].toString());
    this.status = obrseg['OBR.25']['OBR.25.1'].toString();
}
function Constit(obxseg) {
    this.seqno = obxseg['OBX.1']['OBX.1.1'].toString();
    if (this.seqno == '') {
        this.seqno = '1';
    } else {
        this.seqno = this.seqno;
    }
    this.valtype =obxseg['OBX.2']['OBX.2.1'].toString();
    this.test = obxseg['OBX.3']['OBX.3.1'].toString(); // TODO what about s/a's ?
    this.testname = obxseg['OBX.3']['OBX.3.2'].toString();
    this.result = obxseg['OBX.5']['OBX.5.1'].toString();
    this.abn_flags = obxseg['OBX.8']['OBX.8.1'].toString();
    this.status = obxseg['OBX.11']['OBX.11.1'].toString();
}
// FIXME what about NTE ???

var curGroup = null;
var lastReqno = null;
// this is the main output string
var eventOut = {};
// eventOut.obr = {};
var obrIndex = 0;
// get the orginating lab from the msh header
eventOut["originatinglab"] = msg['MSH']['MSH.4']['MSH.4.1'].toString();
eventOut.groups = [];
for each (seg in msg.children()) {
    switch(seg.name().toString()) {
        case "OBR":
            curGroup = new Group(seg);
            if (lastReqno == null || lastReqno != curGroup.reqno) {
                lastReqno = curGroup.reqno;
            }
            // add current group to eventOut Object

            eventOut["reptno"] = curGroup.reptno;
            //eventOut.obr[curGroup.seqno] = curGroup;
            //eventOut.obr[curGroup.seqno]["obx"] = {};
            eventOut.groups[obrIndex] = curGroup;
            eventOut.groups[obrIndex++]["tests"] = [];
            var obxIndex = 0;
            break;
        case "OBX":
            var constit = new Constit(seg);
            //eventOut.obr[curGroup.seqno]["obx"][constit.seqno] = constit;
            eventOut.groups[obrIndex - 1]["tests"][obxIndex++] = constit;
            break;
        default:
            break; // ignore
    }
}

    // now to serilize the object and save to the channel map
    // var eventOutString = JSON.stringify(eventOut);

json = JSON.stringify(eventOut, null); // Convert XML HL7 to json don't pretty print

// json = JSON.parse(json);  // turn it back into a javascript object
// json.orignal_message = original.toString();
// json = JSON.stringify(json);

channelMap.put('xml', msg);
channelMap.put('json', json);

Answer 1

I know that this isn't the answer that you're looking for but this might help: You can use any JAVA class when writing JavaScript code in Mirth:

    //get DoB
    var rawDate = msg['PID']['PID.7']['PID.7.1'].toString()
    var formatter = java.text.SimpleDateFormat("yyyyMMdd");
    var date = formatter.parse(rawDate);

    //format to MM/dd/yyyy
    formatter = java.text.SimpleDateFormat("MM/dd/yyyy");
    var pretty_time = formatter.format(date);

Answer 2

This is what I ended up doing:

function ConvertToISODate(hl7Date) {
// this function will return an ISO formatted date string in UTC from the insanity that is hl7 dates
// the function is now more sane

var utcDate = new Date(); 
     utcDate.setFullYear(hl7Date.substring(0,4), hl7Date.substring(4,6)-1, hl7Date.substring(6,8));
     utcDate.setHours(hl7Date.substring(8,10),hl7Date.substring(10,12),'00');
     return utcDate.toISOString();
}

This seems to now handle the fact that the timestamp in the hl7 message is local time but I want an ISO formatted UTC time string back.