XBRL-based structured digital financial reporting - Blog: Digital Financial Reporting (using XBRL)

This is video introduction to HL7 (Health Level Seven). You may not care about HL7, but this iintroduction to HL7 can help you understand why XBRL is important. HL7 and XBRL both help business systems interoperate with one another.

Meaningful interoperability between systems, how do you get there? Slides 4 through 6 explain three key things needed to achieve meaningful interoperability. The link on slide 6 takes you two a PDF which explains the three things needed for meaningful interoperability.

Technical interoperability is concerned with the conveyance of payload. It neutralizes the effect of distance, is domain independent (OSI levels 1-6), and is fundamentally based on Information Theory - Shannon (1948).
Semantic interoperability communicates meaning unambiguously, using Codes, Identifiers and Context. It is Domain-specific (OSI Level 7) and is needed to understand, interpret and use data.
Process interoperability enables shared human understanding that is needed to coordinate work processes and enable business systems to interoperate. It is essential if interoperability is to provide any benefits in the work place.

The bottom line here is that business system interoperability means benefits to business in terms of efficiency.

Understanding the Three Levels of Interoperability