A health care framework for medical data interoperability and clinical decision support system integration using XML

This thesis presents a framework for promoting medical data interoperability and for integrating diverse clinical decision support systems using the eXtended Markup Language (XML). The current lack of standardized frameworks for managing and sharing medical data in enterprise applications has resulted in numerous 'isolated silos' of information. The motivation for this work is that these isolated silos of non-standardized data severely hinder the widespread adoption and integration of clinical decision support systems, such as those developed within the Medical IDEAs Research Group. As a growing number of studies suggest that clinical decision support systems have a positive impact on reducing medical errors, the potential significance of integrated clinical decision support systems becomes evident. In addition to modeling the framework's architectural and technological issues, the framework is described at the contextual and conceptual level in order to highlight its broader objectives and to hopefully obtain consensus and corroboration on these objectives in the medical informatics community.