Self-documenting structured reports using open information standards
Kahn, C.E.
Studies in Health Technology and Informatics 52 Pt 1: 403-407
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0926-9630 PMID: 10384487 Document Number: 494081
Structured reporting systems use standardized data elements and predetermined data-entry formats to record observations. This article describes a system for structured data entry and reporting that generates reports encoded in the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), an open, internationally accepted standard for document interchange. The structured report is self-documenting: it includes a definition of its allowable data field and values encoded as a report-specific SGML document type definition (DTD). By linking its reporting concepts with those of external vocabularies such as the UMLS Metathesaurus, this system can create open, universally comprehensible structured reports.