The Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) Release 2 standard provides an exchange model for clinical documents (such as discharge summaries and progress notes) and brings the healthcare industry closer to the realisation of an electronic medical record. By leveraging the use of XML, the HL7 V3 Reference Information Model (RIM) and coded vocabularies, CDA makes documents both machine-readable (so they are easily parsed and processed electronically) and human-readable (so they can be easily retrieved and used by the people who need them).
Download CDA Release 2 here.