Transferring electronic medical records

This article outlines the variety of computing environments, application systems and data structures that are available to the general practitioner. The transfer of data from and to electronic medical records systems will become more important as their use increases. Transferability requires the ability to match the data elements between the conversing application systems, and carry out a series of communication steps. Ways to ensure data element matching are described. The communications steps are delineated, and methods of achieving these steps briefly explained. The transfer methods proposed by the medical software industry of Australia are dealt with in detail. They involve the creation of an industry standard 'meta-record' which acts as a standard interface or gateway to the real record. The communication steps are carried out by a medical record 'agent', which is created and maintained by an independent organisation.