What Is Health Level Seven Clinical Document Architecture (HL7-CDA)?

When you're at the doctor's office, you usually get a prescription and instructions on how to take your medicine. But if you're like me, you probably also want to know what's in that prescription—and how to ensure it works. That's why excited about HL7-CDA! It's an institute-certified national standard created by HL7 (which stands for Health Level Seven, but of course), which is an authority on health information technology interoperability. HL7-CDA is an XML-based markup standard that sets the semantics, structure and encoding of clinical documents for exchange. Although CDA uses XML, it also allows for non-XML formats such as PDF, Word and JPEG. This means that if you have a document that contains information about your health or the health of someone you care about—whether it's a prescription or not—you can use HL7-CDA to ensure that everyone who needs access to it can read it quickly and share it with others without worrying about compatibility issues! The HL7 group was formed by a small group of doctors who wanted to help sick people get better. They were brilliant and good at their jobs but didn't know what to do next. So, they called on the help of another doctor who had been working in the data storage and retrieval field for years—that doctor was John Mattison. Together they created CDA, which stands for "Computer-Based Document Architecture". CDA is an XML-based document format used by hospitals and other healthcare organizations worldwide. Not all XML-capable repositories can manage CDA and different HL7 document types; only those with specific features will work appropriately with CDA documents. But there are also XML-capable applications available that can create e-forms applications for electronic medical records, so even if your repository doesn't support CDA, there are still ways to use it!