Alphabet Soup: A dictionary of HealthIT Acronyms
which was the subtitle of a presentation I gave in 2007. That presentation decoded several pages of acronyms related to Healthcare IT. I've updated it for 2011 and present the contents here.General Terminology
TLA – Three Letter Acronym
SDO – Standards Development Organization
DSTU – Draft Standard for Trial Use
HIT – Health Information Technology (also HealthIT)
TC – Technical Committee
TR – Technical Report
WG – Working Group
WGM – Working Group Meeting
(S)IG – (Special) Interest Group
Standards and Related Organizations
AES – Advanced Encryption Standard
ANSI – American National Standards Institute (1918)
ANSI/HITSP – Healthcare IT Standards Panel (2005 - 2010 successor to ANSI/HISB)
ANSI/HISB – Healthcare Informatics Standards Board (1995-2005 successor to ANSI/HISPP)
ANSI/HISPP – Healthcare Informatics Standards Planning Panel (1992-5)
ASTM – American Society for Testing and Materials now ASTM International (1898)
ASTM/E31 – Healthcare Informatics (1970)
CDA – HL7 Clinical Document Architecture
CCD – HL7 Continuity of Care Document (a CDA implementation of CCR)
CCR – ASTM Continuity of Care Record (E2369-05)
CHI – Consolidated Health Informatics (~2002)
CHI – Canada Health Infoway
Continua – Continua Health Aliance
CPT – Current Procedure Terminology (a product of the AMA below)
DICOM – Digital Imaging and Communications In Medicine (1993)
HL7 – Health Level 7 (1987)
IHE – Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (1998)
IETF – Internet Engineering Task Force (1986)
ICD – International Classification of Diseases (from the WHO)
ICD-9-CM – International Classification of Diseases - Clinical Modificatins
ICD-10-CM – International Classification of Diseases - Clinical Modificatins
ICD-10-PCS – CMS Developed Procedure Classification System to use with ICD-10-CM
ISO – International Organization for Standardization (1947)
ISO TC-215 – ISO Health Informatics (1998)
IHTSDO – International Heatlh Terminology Standards Development Organization (2007)
LOINC – Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (1994)
NIST – National Institute of Standards and Technology (1901)
OASIS – Formerly SGML-Open (1993), now Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (1998)
RFC – Request for Comments (an IETF publication)
SNOMED-CT – Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine - Clinical Terminology
TLS – Transport Layer Security (IETF RFC 2246)
UMLS – Unified Medical Language System
V2 – HL7 Version 2 Messaging Standard
V3 – HL7 Version 3 Messaging Standard
W3C – World Wide Web Consortium (1994)
WHO – World Health Organization
X12 – Accredited Standards Committee X12 (1979)
X12N – Subcommittee N of X12 on Insurance
Professional Societies and Related Organizations
AAFP – American Academy of Family Physicians
AAP – American Academy of Pediatrics
ACC – American College of Cardiology
ACP – American College of Physicians
ACR – American College of Radiology
AHIMA – American Health Information Management Association
AMA – American Medical Association
CAP – College of American Pathologists
CCHIT – Certification Commission for Healthcare IT
EHRA – HIMSS EHR Association
JC(AHO) – The Joint Commission (formerly Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations)
HIMSS – Healthcare Information Management Systems Society
MITA - Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance (a division of NEMA)
MMS – Massachusetts Medical Society
NEMA – National Electrical Manufacturers Association
NQF – National Quality Forum
RSNA – Radiological Society of North America
US Federal Government Agencies
AHRQ – Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
CDC – Center for Disease Control
CMS – Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
DOD – US Department of Defense
FDA – Food and Drug Administration
HCFA – Health Care Financing Administration (now CMS)
(D)HHS – (US Department of) Health and Human Services
MHS – Military Health System (part of DOD)
NCHS – National Center for Health Statistics (part of CDC) not to be confused with NCVHS
NIH – National Institutes of Health
NLM – National Library of Medicine (part of the NIH)
ONC(HIT) – Office of the National Coordinator of Healthcare IT
TRICARE – Health care program serving US military, retirees and their families (part of DOD)
VA – US Department of Veterans Affairs
VHA – Veterans Health Administration (part of the VA)
Federal Advisory Committees
AHIC – American Health Information Community (2005-2008)
HITPC – Health Information Technology Policy Committee
HITSC – Health Information Technology Standards Committee
NCVHS – National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics (part of HHS), not to be confused with NCHS
Laws and Regulation
ARRA – The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
HITECH – The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (Title XIII of ARRA)
HIPAA – Health Information Portability and Accountability Act
PIDEPA – (Canada) Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act
MU – Meaningful Use
Other Stuff
NHII – National Health Information Infrastructure
NHIN – A trademark of the National Health Information Network, Inc.
NwHIN – The Nationwide Health Information Network (An ONC initiative that is the successor to NHII and formerly referred to as NHIN).
