Reviewing the integration of patient data: how systems are evolving in practice to meet patient needs

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The integration of Information Systems (IS) is essential to support shared care and to provide consistent care to individuals – patient-centred care. This paper identifies, appraises and summarises studies examining different approaches to integrate patient data from heterogeneous IS.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The literature was systematically reviewed between 1995–2005 to identify articles mentioning patient records, computers and data integration or sharing.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 3124 articles, 84 were included describing 56 distinct projects. Most of the projects were on a regional scale. Integration was most commonly accomplished by messaging with pre-defined templates and middleware solutions. HL7 was the most widely used messaging standard. Direct database access and web services were the most common communication methods. The user interface for most systems was a Web browser. Regarding the type of medical data shared, 77% of projects integrated diagnosis and problems, 67% medical images and 65% lab results. More recently significantly more IS are extending to primary care and integrating referral letters.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>It is clear that Information Systems are evolving to meet people's needs by implementing regional networks, allowing patient access and integration of ever more items of patient data. Many distinct technological solutions coexist to integrate patient data, using differing standards and data architectures which may difficult further interoperability.</p

HL7 Clinical Document Architecture, Release 2

Clinical Document Architecture, Release One (CDA R1), became an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)–approved HL7 Standard in November 2000, representing the first specification derived from the Health Level 7 (HL7) Reference Information Model (RIM). CDA, Release Two (CDA R2), became an ANSI-approved HL7 Standard in May 2005 and is the subject of this article, where the focus is primarily on how the standard has evolved since CDA R1, particularly in the area of semantic representation of clinical events. CDA is a document markup standard that specifies the structure and semantics of a clinical document (such as a discharge summary or progress note) for the purpose of exchange. A CDA document is a defined and complete information object that can include text, images, sounds, and other multimedia content. It can be transferred within a message and can exist independently, outside the transferring message. CDA documents are encoded in Extensible Markup Language (XML), and they derive their machine processable meaning from the RIM, coupled with terminology. The CDA R2 model is richly expressive, enabling the formal representation of clinical statements (such as observations, medication administrations, and adverse events) such that they can be interpreted and acted upon by a computer. On the other hand, CDA R2 offers a low bar for adoption, providing a mechanism for simply wrapping a non-XML document with the CDA header or for creating a document with a structured header and sections containing only narrative content. The intent is to facilitate widespread adoption, while providing a mechanism for incremental semantic interoperability