CDA — Clinical Document Architecture

What Is CDA?

CDA (Clinical Document Architecture) is a standard developed by HL7 that defines the structure and semantics of clinical documents such as discharge summaries, referral letters, and progress notes. It is XML-based and ensures that any conforming system can exchange and render clinical documents consistently.

The standard defines three levels of structured data. Level 1 guarantees human readability, Level 2 adds coded sections, and Level 3 incorporates fully structured clinical entries. This graduated approach allows institutions with varying levels of technological maturity to adopt CDA progressively.

CDA is essential for cross-institutional document exchange. When a patient is transferred between hospitals or care networks, CDA documents ensure that their clinical information travels in a complete, readable, and machine-processable format, supporting continuity of care.

Why It Matters in Healthcare

• Document interoperability: enables clinical documents to be understood by any system compliant with the HL7 standard.
• Care continuity: facilitates the exchange of discharge summaries, referrals, and notes between institutions, improving care coordination.
• Regulatory compliance: many national health networks require CDA-formatted documents for electronic exchange.
• Progressive adoption: the three structural levels allow gradual implementation without requiring full coding from the start.
• FHIR compatibility: CDA coexists with FHIR, and many systems support both standards for different use cases.

How Davix Relates to CDA

• The Davix HIS generates CDA-compliant documents for exchange with national health networks and external systems.
• It supports different CDA levels, enabling the export of structured discharge summaries, progress notes, and referral letters.
• Cloud-native architecture and compatibility with HL7 and FHIR streamline integration with platforms requiring CDA documents.
• It enables visualization and validation of CDA documents received from external systems.

Discover how Davix HIS enables document interoperability at your institution.