Anticlue: Hospital Forms Committee and XML documents

December 23, 2003

Hospital Forms Committee and XML documents

Here is a what if, what if for every form in the hospital there was a corresponding xml standard definition. What if as a part of form approval, the hospital form committee as set up the required fields for an xml document.

What would that gain us?

Imagine a world where it didn't matter the business application, the data would always be standardized. The hierarchical structure of data within an XML document relates perfectly to health care data. Instead of chasing static paper, we could have xml documents. The document could be delivered in Microsoft Word, Adobe pdf's, and web based forms. And with reuse, once the mechanism was built/installed (A CMS XML based system), a central repository could provide ease of use. I've previously mentioned the benefits here.

But let's expand this, imagine an XML defined format for lab results. We could interface this, even through hl7 ver 3. Taking the categorization of the lab result, the plan text that is hard on the eyes could be replaced with xml, and then defaulting the opening into the tool of the viewers choice. A standard document with a template, and you have a easy way to view the data.

Just a thought to expand on John Udell's article.

Posted by Elyse at December 23, 2003 6:50 AM | TrackBack

Comments

Man .. this is a good one too .. but tough to implement. I have not yet messed with Microsoft Infopath .. this would be something to look at in the context of this discussion.

Since I co-chair the forms committee at the hospital .. my mind now wanders to how we would implement this ... and I think that most of this process would be redundant of a similar project - which would be taking the forms we now have and getting them into Soarian.

Soarian MAKES an XML document as a product of the work that one does with the "Adaptability Toolkit." The end-user therefore has no knowledge of the XML ... just the form.

Posted by: Jacob at December 25, 2003 9:19 PM

Well said. I have been thinking a lot about this also. We currently have a homegrown web application the physicians use to look up results, etc. This application queries a ton of different db's and has the performance hits to prove it but still has the most goodwill of any application on campus.

On our todo list is a centralized patient data mart and I think XML forms could help standardize input over many heterogeneous apps and XSL could help standardize the output.

It seems XML/HL7 CDA could be used to somehow ease in managing patient care over a number of different institutions. Just my 2 cents.

Posted by: jon at February 17, 2004 4:55 PM