Navigating the alphabet soup of HIT acronyms

ACO: Accountable Care Organization. A group of doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers who come together voluntarily to provide coordinated, high-quality care to a designated group of patients.

API: Application Programming Interface. A set of definitions and protocols for building and integrating application software.

C-CDA: Consolidated-Clinical Document Architecture. A popular, XML-based markup standard that defines the structure of certain medical records to enable the better exchange of such information.

CDR: Clinical Data Registry. A clinical data registry records information about the health status of patients and the care they receive over time.

CIT: Clinical interface terminology. A tool that allows clinicians to use natural clinical language when documenting in the EHR while connecting their words to standardized, administrative codes behind the scenes.

CPT: Current Procedural Terminology. A coding manual developed by the American Medical Association that is used throughout hospital systems to identify and document medical procedures.

FHIR: Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources. An IT standard for health data exchange developed by Health Level Seven International (HL7).

HCC: Hierarchical Condition Category. Sets of medical codes that are linked to specific clinical diagnoses and are used by CMS as part of a risk-adjustment model that identifies individuals with serious acute or chronic conditions.

HIE: Health Information Exchange. Organizations that allow for the secure and timely exchange of protected health information (PHI) between providers, caregivers, health insurers, and other organizations that have an interest in a patient’s care.

HL7: Health Level 7 International. A nonprofit organization that develops standards that govern how electronic health information is exchanged.

ICD-10-CM: International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification. A system that classifies medical diagnoses across healthcare settings based on the manual produced by the World Health Organization.

IDN: Integrated Delivery Network. Integrated delivery networks, or health systems, are organizations that own and operate a network of healthcare facilities in a defined geographic area.

LOINC: Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes. A system used to electronically transmit vast amounts of health data, including clinical laboratory test orders and results.

ML: Machine Learning. A branch of AI and computer science which focuses on the use of data and algorithms to imitate the way that humans learn, gradually improving its accuracy.

NDC: National Drug Code. A unique, three-segment number which serves as the FDA’s identifier for a given drug.

NLP: Natural Language Processing. A branch of computer science (specifically AI – artificial intelligence) concerned with giving computers the ability to understand text and spoken words in much the same way human beings can.

PGx: Pharmacogenomics. The study of how a person’s genetic profile determines their body’s responses to specific medications.

RAF score: Risk Adjustment Factor score. The risk score assigned to each patient in a risk adjustment payment model. RAF scores are used by healthcare organizations to help predict the cost of caring for a patient.

RDM: Reference Data Management. Provides the infrastructure required to establish a single source of truth, enable interoperability, and optimize analytics for regulatory and value-based programs.

RxNorm®: A catalog that provides a “normalized” name for each brand-name or generic drug, plus a unique identifier that makes it possible to clearly identify a given drug.

SDOH: Social Determinants of Health. The non-medical factors that influence health outcomes – such as education, food insecurity, unemployment.

SNOMED CT®: Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine – Clinical Terms. A standardized, international, multilingual core set of clinical healthcare terminology that can be used in EHRs to capture, record, and share clinical data for use in healthcare organizations.