Patient related care information is important over long periods of time. Thus it cannot be stored in running systems handling day by day information exchange. In the future, when the demands arise to use patient related information, neither the programmes nor the databases, in which the information once was fed, will be available. These facts imply that electronically stored patient related information must be electronically accessible and searchable and thus the information must be stored in a time-invariant way. In future use of patient related information it is of extraordinary importance both nationally, in the EU and internationally to use a standardised way to handle and access archived patient related information. Already in 1995 the search for a solution of these issues was initialised at the Health Informatics Department at Spri--the Swedish National Institute for Health Services Development. A number of internal reports have been produced as background information. Further work has to be carried out at relevant organisational levels in order to structure and logically harmonise an archiving format. The basic XML-format has been preliminary tested by a Spri project and found suitable. Spri has advised the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare and the Swedish National Archive to issue directives concerning the use of XML as the archive-format for EHCR (Electronic Health Care Record) information.