Advancing Healthcare  Information Exchange

RHIO A Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO) - is a network that links hospitals, physicians, pharmacies, and patients for the purpose of sharing information and improving the regional health. 

PMS Practice Management Software - includes scheduling, patient registration, patient statements, and electronic billing.

IT Information Technology (IT) - refers to the development, installation, and implementation of computer systems and applications.

EHR Electronic Health Record - A subset of a healthcare delivery organization’s EMR and is owned by the patient; it has patient input and access that spans episodes of care across multiple healthcare delivery organizations within a community, region, or state (or is some cases, the entire country).

EMR Electronic Medical Record - An application environment composed of the clinical data repository, clinical decision support, controlled medical vocabulary, order entry, computerized provider order entry, pharmacy, and clinical documentation applications. This environment supports the patient’s EMR across inpatient and outpatient environments, and is used by healthcare practitioners to document, monitor, and manage healthcare delivery within a healthcare delivery organization.

PHR Personal Electronic Health Record - Simply defined as referring to the version of the health/medical record owned by the consumer/patient.

CCR Continuity of Care Record - The CCR is a core data set of the most relevant administrative, demographic, and clinical information facts about a patient, covering one or more healthcare encounters. A CCR can be stored on a memory device and carried by a patient from one provider to another. The information  within the CCR can then be downloaded into an EHR and saved in the patients electronic chart. Alternatively a CCR could be sent electronically to a trusted third party such as a RHIO or Health Record Bank.

E-Prescribing Electronic Prescribing - refers to sending prescriptions automatically  to pharmacies either through a handheld personal digital assistant(PDA) or from a computer terminal. E-prescribing can be integrated into an existing EHR or can be used in an office with traditional paper medical charts.

Pay For Performance - A term applied  to giving financial incentives to physicians to meet quality standards

ACQA The Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance - A National consortium of employers, public and private payers, and physician groups who have come together to develop performance benchmarks.

Performance Benchmarks - A performance benchmark is a quality indicator that can be tracked over time. Benchmarks can by applied to preventative screening measures such as the number of elderly patients receiving yearly influenza vaccination or to chronic diseases such as the level of hemoglobin A1c in diabetic patients.

Preventative Screening - This generally refers to  adult and childhood immunizations, breast, colon, cervical cancer screening, and  tobacco cessation.

Disease Management - Refers to managing patients with chronic illness such as diabetes, asthma, hyperlipidemia, congestive heart failure and also women who require prenatal care.

Point of Service - This refers to the place that a healthcare encounter occurs at. It  can be a physician’s office, emergency room, community health department, surgery center,or an inpatient facility. In order for the quality of patient care to improve it is important that all  relevant patient records be available a the point of service.

Interoperability - The ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged. Interoperability is necessary for health records, including test results and documents to be  exchanged between  separate institutions such as physicians offices, hospitals, and laboratories.

Laboratory Interface - An interface that allows laboratory results to flow into an electronic medical record from an outside laboratory. A unidirectional  interface only allows laboratory results to flow into an electronic medical record whereas a bidirectional interface also  allows for  lab tests  to be ordered electronically from  an EMR.

MPI Master Patient Index - A computer based system that facilitates the tracking of patient information by assigning each patient an identifier. By using a MPI, health records that exist at a separate  location can be located and forwarded electronically to a requesting physician.

Federation - A  type of organization in which the members agree and promise to comply with  common policies and methodologies that allow for the  exchange of  health information. The information that is to be shared must be pre- authorized both by  the provider and patient.

Repository - A centralized database that stores personal healthcare information.

Decentralized Database - Personal healthcare information stays where it is generated at the point of care which for example could be a hospital, surgery center, or healthcare providers offices.

NHII National Health Information Infrastructure - A nationwide electronic healthcare information system that complies with safety, security access and quality standards, is interoperable, manages patient identification, accurately matches patient records and supports anytime, anywhere access to healthcare information and decision support.