The place of SGML and HTML in building electronic patient records

The authors are concerned that, although popular, SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) is only one approach to capturing, storing, viewing and exchanging healthcare information and does not provide a suitable paradigm for solving most of the problems associated with paper based patient record systems. Although a discussion of the relative merits of SGML, HTML (HyperText Markup Language) may be interesting, we feel such a discussion is avoiding the real issues associated with the most appropriate way to model, represent, and store electronic patient information in order to solve healthcare problems, and therefore the medical informatics community should firstly concern itself with these issues. The paper substantiates this viewpoint and concludes with some suggestions of how progress can be made.