A proposed referral centre based on HL7/XML.

With the growth of the Inteernet, hospitals have also applied HL7 (Health Level Seven) to exchange data between them. The referral system is identified as an appropriate application system. The effect of referral is to transfer the patient to a suitable hospital in a timely fashion, and to arrange appropriate treatment for the patient. Taking advantage of the Internet to exchange referral data can, not only accelerate the process of patient referral, but also avoid the unnecessary repeat examinations to decrease the waste of medical resources. This article builds up a referral-related message according to the HL7 standard, and develops a referral centre using the Internet environment, making use of XML (eXtensible Markup Language) standard to transform the referral-related data to XML format and exchange referral data between platforms. This electronic referral mechanism is expected to offer other hospitals experience of improved referral practice.