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HIMSS Dictionary
of Health Information
Technology Terms,
Acronyms,
and Organizations,
Fourth Edition
HIMSS Dictionary
of Health Information
Technology Terms,
Acronyms,
and Organizations,
Fourth Edition
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
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v
vi ◾ Contents
R .............................................................................................................. 176
S ..............................................................................................................187
T ..............................................................................................................202
U ..............................................................................................................207
V ..............................................................................................................212
W ..............................................................................................................217
X ..............................................................................................................222
Z ..............................................................................................................224
Appendix A: Healthcare Organizations ......................................................225
Appendix B: Healthcare Related Credentials.............................................. 317
Acronyms ....................................................................................................357
References ...................................................................................................375
Index ...........................................................................................................387
About HIMSS
HIMSS Vision
Better health through information technology.
HIMSS Mission
Globally, lead endeavors optimizing health engagements and care outcomes through
information technology.
vii
Foreword
While the past three years seem to have flown by, it’s still surprising to discover
the influence of technology on terms in common use today. Ransomware, robot-
ics, APIs, precision medicine, APMs, and IoT (Internet of Things) each describe
emerging technologies that are impacting health and care. At the same time, the
healthcare environment is rapidly shifting its focus from patients to consumers,
EHRs to apps, data to analytics, and fee-for-service to value. Yet one thing remains
constant—the use of acronyms is pervasive!
Publication of the fourth edition of the HIMSS Dictionary of Health
Information Technology Terms, Acronyms, and Organizations is timely for help-
ing us navigate this new and evolving space. And this updated publication also
advances HIMSS’s mission of leading healthcare transformation through the best
use of health information technology.
Frequently, members tell us that the HIMSS HIT Dictionary is kept nearby
on their desktop, becoming dog-eared with regular use. Whether it’s a new orga-
nization, term, or acronym, this is THE reliable source. And for the first time,
this fourth edition will include search word capability, providing additional value
through ready-access from our virtual work space.
Whether you’re a student learning about a new topic, a manager researching a
proposal, or a health IT executive evaluating the best strategy, this is an essential
resource to have at your fingertips. As innovation continues to influence healthcare,
I invite you to join me in taking time to enhance our knowledge and start exploring
this valuable tool.
Joyce Sensmeier is vice president of Informatics at HIMSS where she is responsible for
clinical informatics, standards, and interoperability programs and initiatives.
ix
Introduction
xi
Acknowledgments
HIMSS sincerely thanks the Health IT Standards Dictionary Work Group, led
by Dr. Christine A. Hudak, for the time and effort dedicated to the development
of the fourth edition of this dictionary. Without their leadership, expertise, and
consideration, this dictionary would not have become a reality. HIMSS would also
like to thank all of the internal staff members who contributed their time and sup-
port throughout the review process, which greatly contributed to this dictionary’s
creation.
xiii
xiv ◾ Acknowledgments
Eunice Irvin
Student
College of St. Scholastica
Joanna Jung
Clinical Device Analyst
Partners Healthcare System, Inc.
Sindhu R. Kammath
Clinical Informaticist
UHS Inc.
Acknowledgments ◾ xv
Christopher Morgan
Director, Dental Informatics
University of Louisville
Brittany Partridge
Clinical Informatics Specialist
Seton Healthcare Family
Ronnie Wilkins
Graduate Student
Masters in Information Science
Health Informatics Concentration
North Carolina Central University
A A
1
2 ◾ A
helps ensure that patients, especially the chronically ill, get the right care
at the right time, with the goal of avoiding unnecessary duplication of A
services and preventing medical errors. When an ACO succeeds in both
delivering high-quality care and spending healthcare dollars more wisely,
it will share in the savings it achieves for the Medicare program.28
Acquisition modality: A system that acquires medical images, waveforms, or mea-
surements while a patient or specimen is present (e.g., a computed tomography
scanner, a specimen microscope, or a hemodynamic measurement system).29
Acquisition modality importer: A system that integrates a non-DICOM-ready
modality into workflows.29
ACS (Access control service): 1. Includes embedded security management capa-
bilities (provided as precursor information to this construct), and all other
user-side access control and decision-making capabilities (policy enforce-
ment point, policy decision point, obligation service, etc.) needed to enforce
user-side system-object security and privacy policy. The ACS is responsible
for creating trustworthy credentials forwarded in cross-domain assertions
regarding security information and attributes. Access control services may
be hierarchical and nested, distributed, or local.22 2. A security service that
provides protection of system resources against unauthorized access. The
two basic mechanisms for implementing this service are ACLs and tickets.18
Active directory: See AD.
Active server pages: See ASP.
Activity-based costing: See ABC.
Activity tracker: A device or application for monitoring and tracking fitness-related
metrics such as distance walked or run, calorie consumption, heartbeat, and
quality of sleep. Most often refers to dedicated electronic monitoring devices
that are synced to a computer or Smartphone for long-term data tracking.8
See Wearable technology.
Actor: Information systems or components of information systems that produce,
manage, or act on information associated with operational activities in the
enterprise.29
Acute physiology and chronic health evaluation: See APACHE.
AD (Active directory): Microsoft’s trademarked directory service, released as part
of the Microsoft® Windows architecture. Like other directory services,
such as Novell Directory Services (NDS), Active Directory is a central-
ized and standardized system that automates network management of user
data, security, and distributed resources, and enables interoperation with
other directories. Active Directory is designed especially for distributed
networking environments.2
AD (Addendum): New documentation used to add information to an original
entry. Addenda should be timely and bear the current date and reason for
the additional information being added to the health record.30
Addendum: See AD.
6 ◾ A
Alert: Written or acoustic signals to announce the arrival of messages and results and
A to avoid possible undesirable situations, such as contradictions, conflicts, erro-
neous entry, tasks that are not performed in time, or an exceptional result.
A passive alert will appear on the screen in the form of a message. An active
alert calls for immediate attention, and the appropriate person is immediately
notified (e.g., by electronic pager).36 See Decision support system.
Alert fatigue: Multiple false alarms by smart technology that cause workers to
ignore or respond slowly to them.50
Alerting system: Computer-based system that automatically generates alerts and
advice as a consequence of monitoring or other information-processing
activities.36
Algorithm: Step-by-step procedure for problem-solving or calculating; a set of
rules for problem solving. In data mining, it defines the parameters of the
data mining model.50
Alias: In some computer operating systems and programming languages, an alias
is an alternative and usually easier-to-understand or more significant name
for a defined data object. The data object can be defined once and later a
developer can define one or more equivalent aliases that will also refer to the
data object. In some languages, this is known as an “equate” instruction.2
Alias domain name: The practice of establishing an e-mail protocol within another
e-mail protocol, to allow for the local identification of users within a larger
enterprise.3
ALOS (Average length of stay): Refers to the average number of days that patients
spend in hospital. It is generally measured by dividing the total number of
days stayed by all inpatients during a year by the number of admissions or
discharges. Day cases are excluded.51
Alpha/beta testing: A pre-production development stage comprised of an initial
trial (alpha test) by a select set of users. This initial test is to ensure that the
system is stable enough for a rigorous trial (beta test) by additional users,
or in a variety of settings.52,53 See Beta testing.
Alternative payment models: See APMs.
ALU (Arithmetic logic unit): A major component of the central processing unit
of a computer system. It does all processes related to arithmetic and logic
operations that need to be done on instruction words. In some micropro-
cessor architectures, the ALU is divided into the arithmetic unit (AU) and
the logic unit (LU).54
Ambulatory care: Medical care, including diagnosis, observation, treatment, and
rehabilitation that is provided on an outpatient basis. Ambulatory care is
given to persons who are able to ambulate or walk about.28
Ambulatory care group: See ACG.
Ambulatory care information system: Information systems used to improve the
quality of care and promote business systems integration in the ambula-
tory care setting.55
A ◾ 11
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