A proposal for a distributed XML healthcare record

Abstract

The management of clinical data is a complex task. Patient related information reported in patient folders is a set of heterogeneous and structured data accessed by different users having different goals (in local or geographical networks). XML language provides a mechanism for describing, manipulating, and visualising structured data in web-based applications. XML ensures that the structured data is managed in a uniform and transparent manner independently from the applications and their providers guaranteeing some interoperability. Extracting data from the healthcare record and structuring them according to XML makes the data available through browsers. The MIC/MIE model (Medical Information Category / Medical Information Elements) [1], which allows the definition and management of healthcare records and used in CADMIO, a HISA [5]. based project, is described in this paper, using XML for allowing the data to be visualised through web browsers.