International standards for hospital communication systems.

A major problem for many Hospital Information Systems is separating modules to meet the information requirements of specialized parts before integration into one system. In most cases the interfaces are proprietary, leading to an enormous amount of implementation work for access to other systems. International Standards, such as a common language in Medical Communication, offer the possibility of reducing this variety and enhancing the information interchange by connecting more systems in shorter time with less cost.

RDA: a standard for client server communication in a hospital information system.

The University of Erlangen-Nürnberg contains a large medical faculty with many hospitals, laboratories, and other departments distributed in the town of Erlangen, and it is necessary to exchange medical data between them. For example the basic patient data which are held on central computers, must be distributed to various stations and departments. In addition medical reports which are prepared on or generated by computers in central departments must be transmitted to various points in the hospitals [1]. When the network, based on ethernet cabling within the hospitals and a glass fiber backbone, has been completed, the Erlangen hospital communication system will support an electronic exchange of medical information. Two separate communication methods are used: data exchange via electronic mail according to the international standard X.400 and remote access to central databases using the software product NET-WORK.