CDA

Health Level Seven, Inc. (HL7) has developed the Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) for the healthcare industry. Health Level Seven, Inc. (http://www.HL7.org) is a not-for-profit, ANSI-Accredited Standards Developing Organization that provides standards for the exchange, management and integration of data that supports clinical patient care and the management, delivery and evaluation of healthcare services. HL7 boasts over 1,800 members representing  over 400 corporate members, including 90 percent of the largest information systems vendors serving healthcare. HL7 international affiliates are active in Australia, Canada, China, Finland, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Southern Africa, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.

The CDA  was initially known as the Patient Record Architecture (PRA).  It is an XML vocabulary that was designed to provide an exchange model for clinical documents such as discharge summaries and progress notes.  CDA brings the healthcare industry one step closer to the realization of an electronic medical record. The CDA Standard is expected to be published as an ANSI approved standard.