How to convert HL7 formatted text to HTML?

Question

The formatted text system in HL7 seems arcane and obscure, and the documentation is poor.

It must be a common requirement to convert it to HTML.

Is there a utility or library out there (preferably .NET) which performs simple conversion to HTML?

Answer 1

You can do a translation something along the line of

OBX_Value = OBX_Value.Replace("\.br\", "<br />");
OBX_Value = OBX_Value.Replace("\h\"; "<b>");
OBX_Value = ...

aso for all defined text formatting

Here is a comparison HTML <-> HL7 formatting , but beware to read the comments, as the examples do not take care of escaped field delimiters.