The Open Healthcare Group: Open Source Healthcare Software

A Smarter Way for Better Healthcare

XML and Healthcare

Why XML in Healthcare?

The attributes of XML that make it so compelling for the mathematicians and chemists make it an ideal instrument for physicians and healthcare providers. In medicine, we are deluged by a tidal wave of information. Furthermore, providers must be able to communicate securely with insurance companies, regulatory agencies, other healthcare providers, and patients themselves about the details of patient care. Healthcare providers have thus acquired the daunting task of managing a very complex collection of data.

By using tags which describe the meaning of content, XML will markedly improve the management of clinical information. With HTML, a physician could easily view a list of allergies to medications on his Web browser. He cannot, however, e-mail it to a specialist and expect her to be able to paste the records directly into her hospital's database. Her computer would merely interprete the information as text and would not be able to manipulate the data. An XML health record, however, is a truly transmitable record. The interoperability of XML would allow physicians and patients to share secure clinical information in a meaningful way. For example, if a physciain entered a list of medications into an XML health record, each allergy would be clearly marked by tags such as <medication> ... </medication>. If the data was then transmitted to another hospital, its database could clearly recognize each medication as such. You wouldn't need to manually reformat the data.

Furthermore, XML allows interoperability between various electronic devices. Clinical data could theoretically be transfered from an EKG machine or a CT scanner to a desktop computer, a handheld computer or even a pager. After filling out a simple form, procedure notes, progress notes, referral letters and letters to patients could also be generated automatically. XML could therefore automate much of the paperwork in medicine.

The management of information is a large part of medicine. The interoperability and simplicity of XML will greatly help healthcare professionals manage, manipulate and transfer the large amounts of clinical data that they generate. [Back]

1. What is XML?

2. Why XML in Healthcare?