PACS / HL7 Interface Lab

Two real pieces of software, not a simulation. Orthanc, an open source DICOM server acting as the PACS, stores and routes imaging studies and exposes a REST API and web UI for worklist and study management. Mirth Connect, an open source HL7 interface engine acting as the RIS-to-PACS bridge, routes ADT, ORM, and ORU messages between clinical systems.

Together they simulate the core of a hospital imaging environment: a PACS receiving studies, and an interface engine moving order and result messages between systems — the exact seam an Imaging Systems Administrator lives in.

Building the Mirth HL7 channel surfaced a genuine, undocumented problem: Mirth 4.x replaced the old dedicated MLLP connector with a generic TCP Listener architecture, and a wrong field or class name in hand-written channel XML produces a silently invalid channel with no logged exception. Diagnosing it meant reading the server's own source — the hex byte formatting trap and the ACK response setting are both the kind of thing you only learn from an afternoon of genuine, unglamorous troubleshooting.