The following sections show how you can use Iguana channels to convert data into HL7 Version 3 messages. In this tutorial, you will:

• Use Chameleon to create a VMD file that extracts data from an incoming message and transforms it into XML format;
• Create a second VMD file that uses a Python script and Python module to generate an HL7 Version 3 message from the XML data;
• Ensure that Iguana can access the Python module that generates the text file;
• Create channels in Iguana to receive incoming HL7 message data in 2.6 (or any version 2 format), convert it to XML, then generate the HL7 Version 3 message.

	In the remainder of this tutorial, the term HL7 2.x will be used to describe the format of the incoming message, and refers to a supported HL7 version whose first digit is 2 (for example, 2.6, 2.5.1, 2.5, and so on). Recall that all HL7 2.x standards are backward compatible: this means that the 2.6 library can read HL7 2.5 messages, the 2.5 library can read 2.4 messages, and so on.

	Note that this example is not an HL7 Version 3 processing engine: it only generates specific output text. If you are familiar with HL7 Version 3, you can adapt this example to generate the information that you require. See Understanding the hl7version3 Python Module for more information on how you can customize the Python module described here to generate other types of HL7 version 3 messages.

	This tutorial describes how to generate HL7 Version 3 messages, not HL7 Version 3 CDA documents. For a tutorial on how to generate HL7 Version 3 CDA documents, see Generating HL7 Version 3 CDA Documents.