A straightforward guide to some of the hottest terms in health IT.
1. Actionable data: Data points that are immediately available and useful to the situation at hand. For healthcare, this tends to mean patient data, useful without analysis to clinicians, payers and the patients themselves.
2. Breach: The illegal access of a health organization's information, data breaches have proliferated in recent years. There have been 1,140 health data breaches alone since 2009, according to ProPublica.
3. Clinical decision software: Built-in evidence-based software that helps providers make clinical decisions for their patients.
4. Data center: The physician location where an organization's data is stored. Many are stored off-site in data warehouses or centers.
5. E-prescription: Converting from the traditional paper, e-prescriptions are sent across systems from providers to pharmacies for patients to pick up without the phone calls, lost paper prescriptions or possible fraud.
6. EHR: Electronic health records are the digital storage of a patient's medical information in a documented format, able to be exchanged and accessible from multiple locations on a practice's EHR platform.
7. Encryption: Data encryption is the codifying of information into an unreadable state using algorithms or ciphers. It plays a key role in the secure transmission of information, particularly patient data.
8. HIE: Health information exchanges are slowly but steadily inching their way into the market.
9. HL7: A set of international standards for the sharing, exchange, integration and retrieval of healthcare information, they are dictated by Health Level 7, an international organization. The standards include best practices to enhance clinical management and practice.
10. Home monitoring: The use of technology to remotely monitor a patient's information from their home to enhance the patient's comfort and reduce costs.
11. ICD-10: The abbreviation for the International Codex of Diseases, 10th edition. The deadline for implementation of the code system for classifying treatments and medical conditions in the U.S. falls on Oct. 1, 2015, although it has been delayed several times.
12. Interoperability: The ability of information systems to exchange information. Interoperability has long been a problem in health systems, but the ONC has set a deadline of 2017 for national interoperability.
13. Meaningful use: A set of standards measuring how a provider is using an EHR system and its functionality. Many providers and organizations have protested that the regulations are too burdensome, and the rate of attestation has lagged.
14. mHealth: An abbreviation for mobile health, the term for all mobile devices and apps that allow patients and providers to monitor health information. It is a rapidly growing sector for both patients and providers.
15. ONC: The Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, a federal agency that regulates and standardizes health technology for use in the U.S. It was founded in 2004 when the medical industry began to incorporate digital record-keeping.
16. Opensource: A type of coding that allows for free redistribution, have a source code, allow for derived works and must be technology neutral, according to the Opensource Initiative. Many EHRs are developed on opensource codes, which reduces licensing costs.
17. Portal: An access point to an online system. The term is frequently applies to patient potals, an access interface tool where patients can access their medical records and log into a healthcare organization's system to make appointments, manage prescriptions and ask questions, among other functions.
18. Predictive analytics: The use of datasets to make predictions about the health of an individual or group of individuals. It has been touted as a way to reduce costs by preventing hospital admissions once a patient's condition worsens.
19. Remote monitoring: Similar to home monitoring but more widely defined, remote monitoring can apply to a patient anywhere. Remote monitoring tools are used in hospitals, as in the case of smart beds or smart monitors. Frequently, remote monitoring tools send alerts to a nurse station if patient's condition worsens, reducing the need for close personal monitoring.
20. SaaS: An abbreviation for Software-as-a-Service, a licensing model that consists of a developer hosting a software service and licensing it to a client over a monthly subscription method.
21. SSO: An abbreviation for single sign-on, a system on which a provider can log in once and then is able to access the system from any device in a service area. It has streamlined workflow and cut down on documentation time, eliminating the number of times a provider has to log into a system.
22. System architecture: An overarching term to refer to the way an information system is built. Architecture varies from system to system and defines the way it is maintained.
23. Telehealth/telemedicine: The use of telepresence or video conferencing to conduct medical consultations or treatments from a distance. It is a quickly growing sector and has provided access to many rural residents with limited physical access to medical services.
24. Vendor: A term for a company that sells and maintains an IT system. It can refer to EHR vendors, general platform vendors or a variety of other IT management companies, but a vendor-healthcare organization relationship has become a central one to the operation of the medical industry.
25. Wearable: Any portable device that can be worn to collect medical information, such as pacemakers, pedometers or smartphones. More and more Americans are using mobile devices to collect health data, and providers are facing the question of how to collect and use this data in the most efficient way possible.