---
title: "Introducing Funke: Native HL7v2 Parsing on Databricks"
description: "HL7v2 is the dominant healthcare messaging standard but is difficult to parse due to its nested, delimiter-encoded structure. Existing workarounds like converting to FHIR or using third-party engines add cost and latency. Funke, the successor to the open-source Smolder library, is a new open-source Python and PySpark library under the Databricks License that parses HL7v2 messages directly into native Spark types, preserving the full hierarchy losslessly. It deploys as a Databricks Asset Bundle with a Declarative Pipeline that uses Auto Loader to ingest raw messages into a Unity Catalog volume, then parses them into structured silver tables following the medallion pattern. The library supports all HL7 message types and versions, includes accessor helpers for extracting fields by segment and component, and ships with a demo using synthetic ADT events to illustrate end-to-end ingestion and gold table creation, including a live census and bed utilization dashboard."
---

# Introducing Funke: Native HL7v2 Parsing on Databricks

[Databricks](https://yomu.fyi/company/databricks) · Sean Fischer, Chris Mantz, Andy Launchbury · Oct 9, 2026

**Type:** Announcement

## Summary

HL7v2 is the dominant healthcare messaging standard but is difficult to parse due to its nested, delimiter-encoded structure. Existing workarounds like converting to FHIR or using third-party engines add cost and latency. Funke, the successor to the open-source Smolder library, is a new open-source Python and PySpark library under the Databricks License that parses HL7v2 messages directly into native Spark types, preserving the full hierarchy losslessly. It deploys as a Databricks Asset Bundle with a Declarative Pipeline that uses Auto Loader to ingest raw messages into a Unity Catalog volume, then parses them into structured silver tables following the medallion pattern. The library supports all HL7 message types and versions, includes accessor helpers for extracting fields by segment and component, and ships with a demo using synthetic ADT events to illustrate end-to-end ingestion and gold table creation, including a live census and bed utilization dashboard.

## Context

HL7v2 is the dominant healthcare messaging standard but is difficult to parse due to its nested, delimiter-encoded structure. Existing workarounds like converting to FHIR or using third-party engines add cost and latency. The open-source Smolder library was a previous solution but predates modern Databricks platform features.

## Approach / What changed

Funke parses HL7v2 messages directly into native Spark types, preserving the full hierarchy. It deploys as a Databricks Asset Bundle with a Declarative Pipeline that ingests raw messages via Auto Loader into a Unity Catalog volume, then parses them into structured silver tables. The library includes accessor helpers for extracting fields by segment and component, and supports all HL7 message types and versions.

## Takeaways

- Funke parses HL7v2 messages losslessly into native Spark types, preserving the full hierarchy as a map of segment names to repetitions, with fields addressable by number, repetition, component, and subcomponent.
- Funke deploys as a Databricks Asset Bundle with a Declarative Pipeline following the medallion pattern, using Auto Loader for ingestion and Unity Catalog for governance.
- Funke includes accessor helpers like get\_value, get\_segment, get\_field, get\_component, and a parse\_hl7\_version helper, and ships with a demo using synthetic ADT events to illustrate end-to-end ingestion and gold table creation.

## FAQ

### How does Funke handle varying HL7v2 delimiter characters?

Funke reads the delimiter characters declared in the MSH header of each message, including field, component, repetition, and subcomponent separators, and uses them to parse the message correctly.

### What is the deployment process for Funke?

Funke is deployed as a Databricks Asset Bundle. Users clone the repository, open it in the DAB editor, and click Deploy, which builds the library and provisions the pipeline, Unity Catalog schema, and landing volume. Alternatively, deployment can be done via the Databricks CLI.

### Does Funke replace an interface engine or clinical expertise?

No, Funke is a parser and ingestion accelerator. It does not replace an interface engine or the clinical and HL7 expertise required to interpret messages correctly. The mapping from segments to business concepts is left to the user's domain knowledge.

**Tags:** [Databricks](https://yomu.fyi/topic/databricks), [Healthcare](https://yomu.fyi/topic/healthcare), [HL7](https://yomu.fyi/topic/hl7), [Python](https://yomu.fyi/topic/python), [Spark](https://yomu.fyi/topic/spark)

- Source: [Databricks](https://www.databricks.com/blog/introducing-funke-native-hl7v2-parsing-databricks)
- Source URL: https://www.databricks.com/blog/introducing-funke-native-hl7v2-parsing-databricks
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-10-09T00:00:17.066Z

[Read original post](https://www.databricks.com/blog/introducing-funke-native-hl7v2-parsing-databricks)