What does ZCD segment refer to in HL7 message?

Question

Does anyone know what ZCD may refer to? It is described as a segment with a link back to PreManage for the patient!

Can anyone please provide more details?

Answer 1

The Z segments (segments those begin with the letter "Z") are custom segments. Those are not defined in specifications. They vary from vendor to vendor. Vendor may publish a document explaining usage of segment. Two connected parties should know in advance and decide the usage by mutual understanding.

As those are custom, and if there is no way to know what data they contain, it may be safe to neglect them hoping the sender have not put critical data in it.

Please refer to this:

Z-segments can be inserted anywhere in the HL7 message. A popular approach is to place the Z-segment within a group of segments that contain similar information, such as insurance. Z-segments are also often placed at the end of the message. The advantage of doing so is that this placement prevents systems configured to parse “standard” HL7 format from requiring any configuration modifications in order to process the message. The application simply reads the segments in the order expected and then extracts the data from the Z-segment (if needed) via parser modifications.

Working with unexpected Z-segments Sometimes systems may send unexpected Z-segments, whether or not they were part of the original specifications. Even if you are not interested in the data in the Z-segment, you may still (depending on its location) need to take the segment into account while testing and developing your interface.