Key Acronyms

What’s That?

  • ACO – Accountable Care Organization
  • ANPRM – Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
  • API – Application Programming Interface
  • ARRA – American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
  • ASC – Ambulatory Surgical Center
  • ASP – Application Service Provider
  • ATCB – Authorized Testing and Certification Body
  • ATNA – Audit Trail and Node Authentication
  • BHIE – Bidirectional Health Information Exchange
  • CAH – Critical Access Hospital
  • CBO – Community-Based Organization
  • CCD - Continuity of Care Document (CCR + CDA became CCD)
  • CCHIT – Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology
  • CCN – CMS Certification Number
  • CCR – Continuity of Care Record
  • CDA – Clinical Document Architecture
  • CDO – care delivery organization
  • CEHRT – Certified Electronic Health Record Technology
  • CDR – Clinical Data Repository
  • CDS – clinical decision support
  • CDSS – clinical decision support system
  • CFR – Code of Federal Regulations
  • CHC – Connected Healthcare Community
  • CHIPRA – Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act
  • CHPL – Certified Health IT Product List
  • CHR – Community Health Records
  • CLIA – Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments
  • CIO – Chief Information Officer
  • CMIO – Chief Medical Information/Informatics Officer
  • CMV – Controlled Medical Vocabulary
  • CPOE – Computerized physician order entry
  • CPT - Current Procedural Terminology
  • CQM – Cinical Quality Measure
  • CTE – Conditions for Trusted Exchange
  • CY / FY -Calendar Year / Fiscal Year (Federal)
  • DBE – Documenting by exception
  • DOB – Date of Birth
  • ED – Emergency Department
  • EH – Eligible Hospital
  • eMAR – Electronic Medication Administration Record
  • EMR/EHR – electronic medical/health record
  • EP – Eligible Professional
  • eRx – Electronic Transmission of Prescriptions (ePrescribing)
  • FACA – Federal Advisory Committee Act
  • FFS – Fee-For-Service
  • FHA - Federal Health Architecture
  • FIPS – Federal Information Processing Standards
  • FOA – Funding Opportunity Announcement
  • FOSS – Free and Open Source/Solutions Software
  • FQHC – Federally Qualified Health Center
  • FTP – File Transport Protocol
  • GPRO – Group Practice Reporting Option
  • HIE – Health Information Exchanges
  • HIM – Health Information Management
  • HIO – Health Information Organization
  • HIQR – Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting
  • HIPAA - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
  • HIT – Health Information Technology
  • HITECH – Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act
  • HIQR – Hospital Inpatient Quality Reporting
  • HL7 - Health Level 7
  • HPSA – Health Professional Shortage Areas
  • ICE – Integrated Community EHR
  • IFR – Interim Final Rule
  • IPPS – Inpatient Prospective Payment System
  • IT – Information Technology
  • LOINC - Logical Observations Identifiers, Names, Codes
  • MA – Medicare Advantage
  • MCMP –Medicare Care Management Performance Demonstration
  • MITA - Medicaid Information Technology Architecture
  • MU – Meaningful Use
  • NCVHS –National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics
  • NwHIN - Nationwide Health Information Network
  • NP – Nurse Practitioner
  • NPI –National Provider Identifier
  • NPRM – Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
  • NLP – Natural Language Processing
  • NPPES - National Plan and Provider Emumeration System
  • OCPO - Office of the Chief Privacy Officer
  • OMB –Office of Management and Budget
  • ONC - Office of the National Coordinator (preferred abbreviation for ONCHIT)
  • ONC-ATCB – ONC Authorized Testing and Certification Body
  • ONCHIT - Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
  • PA –Physician Assistant
  • PACS – picture archiving and communication systems
  • PCHR – Personally Controlled Health Record
  • PCMH – Patient-Centered Medical Home
  • PECOS –Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System
  • PHA – Public Health Agency
  • PHI – Personal Health Information or Protected Health Information
  • PHR – Personal Health Record
  • PHSA – Public Health Service Act
  • PMS – Practice Management System
  • POS – Place of Service
  • PPS –Prospective Payment System (Medicare Part A)
  • PQRI – Physician Quality Reporting Initiative
  • PQRS – Physician Quality Reporting System
  • QRDA - Quality Reporting Document Architecture
  • REC – Regional Extension Center
  • RHC –Rural Health Clinic
  • RHIO – Regional Health Information Organizations
  • RHQDAPU –Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update
  • SaaS – Software-as-a-Service product
  • SDO – Standards Development Organization
  • SMHP – State Medicaid Health Information Plan
  • SMTP – Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
  • SNOMED CT – Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine — Clinical Terms
  • SOAP  – Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan
  • TIN –Taxpayer Identification Number
  • UCD - User-Centered Design
  • UNII Unique Ingredient Identifier
  • UCUM – Unified Code for Units of Measure
  • USB – Universal Serial Bus
  • VA – Veterans Affairs
  • VLER – Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (used by VA)
  • XMS – Extensible Markup Language

Who’s That?

  • AAAAI – American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology
  • AAHAM - American Association of Healthcare Administrative Management
  • AAPC - American Academy of Professional Coders
  • ACC – American College of Cardiology
  • ACRO – Association of Clinical Research Organizations
  • AHA - American Hospital Association
  • AHDI - Association for Healthcare Documentation Integrity
  • AHIC – American Health Information Community (Now NeHC)
  • AHIMA – The American Health Information Management Association
  • AHRQ – Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
  • AMDIS - Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems
  • AMIA – American Medical Informatics Association
  • AMSPAR - The Association of Medical Secretaries, Practice Managers, Administrators and Receptionists
  • ANI – Alliance for Nursing Informatics
  • ANSI – American National Standards Institute
  • ASHHRA - American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration
  • ASTM - ASTM International – originally known as the American Society for Testing and Materials
  • CAQH - Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare
  • CCHIT – Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology
  • CDC - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • CHIME - College of Healthcare Information Management Executives
  • CMS – Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services
  • DMAA - Disease Management Association of America (now Care Continuum Alliance)
  • EHRVA – Electronic Health Record Vendors Association
  • FDA - Food and Drug Administration
  • HBMA – Healthcare Billing and Management Association
  • HIMSS - Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
  • HISPC - Health Information Security and Privacy Collaboration
  • HITRC - National Health IT Research Center
  • HITSP – Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel
  • HHS – Department of Health and Human Services (link to recovery site)
  • HRSA - Health Resources and Services Administration (under HHS)
  • IHI - Institute for Healthcare Improvement
  • IHTSDO – International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization
  • IPA – Independent Practice Association
  • ISDS - International Society for Disease Surveillance
  • JCAHO - The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations
  • MGMA - Medical Group Management Association
  • MSO – Medical Service Organization
  • MTIA - Medical Transcription Industry Association
  • MTSO – Medical Transcription Service Organization
  • NAHAM – National Association of Healthcare Access Management
  • NAHIT – National Alliance for Health Information Technology (Ceasing operation on 9/30/09)
  • NASCIO – National Association of State Chief Information Officers
  • NCPDP - National Counsil for Prescription Drug Programs
  • NCQA – National Committee for Quality Assurance
  • NCVHS - National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics
  • NeHC – National eHealth Collaborative
  • NHMA - National Hispanic Medical Association
  • NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology
  • NQF - National Quality Forum
  • OCR – Office of Civil Rights (Dept of Health and Human Services)
  • OESS - Office of E-Health Standards and Servies (under CMS)
  • PAHCOM – Professional Association of Health Care Office Management
  • PCAST - President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
  • PHO – Physician Hospital Organization
  • SHIRE – Summit Health Institute for Research and Education, Inc.
  • TCBI – The Center for Business Innovation
  • TIPAAA - The IPA Association of America
  • WEDI - Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange