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Published on: September 20, 2018
Extensible Stylesheet Language Formatting Objects (XSL-FO): a tool to transform patient data into attractive clinical
Linas Simonaitis1, Anne Belsito, Jeff Warvel
1Regenstrief Institute for Health Care, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
AMIA ... Annual Symposium Proceedings. AMIA Symposium
|January 24, 2007
Summary
Clinicians improved clinical reports using Extensible Stylesheet Language Formatting Objects (XSL-FO). This new system, generating attractive PDF and PostScript documents, saw enthusiastic adoption and positive user ratings.
Area of Science:
- Medical Informatics
- Document Formatting Standards
Background:
- Clinicians at Wishard Hospital utilized printed clinical reports known as "Pocket Rounds".
- A need existed to enhance the functionality and appearance of these essential clinical documents.
Purpose of the Study:
- To describe a novel process for improving clinical reports.
- To evaluate the effectiveness and user acceptance of a new report generation system.
Main Methods:
- Implemented a new process centered on Extensible Stylesheet Language Formatting Objects (XSL-FO), a World Wide Web Consortium standard.
- Generated Portable Document Format (PDF) and PostScript reports with advanced formatting capabilities (columns, tables, borders, shading, indents, dividing lines).
- Monitored report printing patterns and conducted user surveys over an eight-month study period on three Medicine wards.
Main Results:
- The new system was enthusiastically adopted, with 78% of 26,418 reports printed using the improved method.
- Clinical users rated the new reports significantly higher (4.2/5) compared to old reports (3.4/5).
- The primary user-reported drawback was a slightly longer printing time for the new reports.
Conclusions:
- Extensible Stylesheet Language Formatting Objects (XSL-FO) presents a viable method for transforming text data into functional and visually appealing clinical reports.
- The XSL-FO system demonstrated relative ease of implementation and modification.
- The study indicates strong potential for XSL-FO in enhancing clinical documentation.
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