EHR: Definition of Terms
A | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | M | N | O | P | Q |
S | T | V | W
A
ACI – The Add Clinical Item window.
ADT – Admission, Discharge and Transfer - Admission, Discharge and Transfer systems are software
systems used by healthcare facilities to track patients from arrival through departure.
Allscripts – Touchworks software application vendor
Automation –A system of operating using computers or other electronic devices to reduce time spent
on manual process and paperwork.
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C
Call Center –Personnel who will provide assistance to patients for scheduling and other issues.
Careguide™ Template – The template is what we ship to help the provider make choices regarding
meds, orders and instructions. Once the template is filled in, it results in a set of orders and
instructions that now represent the patient’s health management plan for that problem.
Charge Module – A component of application that allows providers to generate charge for services
provided in the ambulatory environment and send to Flowcast
Chart Alerts – Users can create chart alerts that appear on the TouchWorks Clinical Toolbar about
the selected patient. These alerts can be viewed by anyone who may have a clinical encounter with
the patient or otherwise have the appropriate security access.
Chart Viewer – The encounters are listed by date in reverse chronologic order. The encounter name
is listed, along with the date, provider, and provider specialty.
Clinical Component – Information about a patient that is categorized for entry and viewing. Included
in Clinical Components (current and historical) are medications, orders, problems, lab tests, etc.
Clinical Desktop – The Clinical Desktop contains all areas, or components, of a patient’s record.
This workspace is highly configurable, and can be personalized for each TouchWorks user.
Clinical Toolbar – Icons that allow users to add clinical items, review data and track patient location
and status.
Clinical Transformation – A process by which practices review current operations to determine what
process needs to change to optimize how work gets done.
Co-location – A data center where a real-time mirror of applications and databases are stored. Colocation is a means to ensure a high-availability application.
Components – Configurable workspaces located on the Clinical Desktop, including Problem, Visit
Summary, Meds/Orders, Allergies, ChartViewer, Patient Workslist and Health Management Plan.
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D
Dragon™ – Voice Recognition Software
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E
Electronic Signature – Identification of user that performed an action.
EHR – Electronic Health Record
Encounter Summary – Information that is entered during the intake process of the patient visit is
saved to the Encounter Summary. Once it is committed, this new information is permanently saved.
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F
Favorites – A favorites lists allows a user to save his or her most frequently used dictionary entries in
separate list. These lists save time entering information, because the user can avoid searching large
dictionaries for a desired entry.
Flowcast™ – Practice Management System
Flow Sheets – The FlowSheets view of the Health Management Plan component displays a list of
flowsheets defined for the patient based on his or her sex and age.
Future State – How the department will function at a point in time when the EHR has been
implemented.
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G
Go live – The day a practice begins using the EHR when seeing patients. Also refers to days just
after the first day when on-site support staff are present in the practice.
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H
High-availability – A software application that is scheduled to be available to users 24x7 with only
minimal scheduled unavailablilty for maintenance. High availability is achieved by a combination of
hardware redundancy, fail-over systems and policies.
HIPAA – Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act – Refers to the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.
HMP – Health Management Plan component of the Clinical Desktop
Horizontal Toolbar (HTB) – The horizontal toolbar (HTB) displays a collection of tabs (or functional
areas) available for the active (that is, selected) vertical toolbar.
HPI – History of Present Illness
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I
ICD9 code – The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems
(most commonly known by the abbreviation ICD) provides codes to classify diseases and a wide
variety of signs, symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances and external causes
of injury or disease. Every health condition can be assigned to a unique category and given a code,
up to six characters long. The codes are used for billing.
IDX –Practice Management System
Interface – The exchange of data between two computer systems. Interfaces can be uni- or bidirectional.
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M
MRN – Medical Record Number
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N
Note Authoring Workspace (NAW) – Note space where clinicians document the patient encounter.
Note Forms – Note Forms are the building blocks of v11 Note. Note Forms are highly configurable
and can be built using the Note Form Builder tool. AHS will be delivering several hundred Note Forms
for clients to serve as a solid starting point. Note forms can have Medcin Findings, Text Items,
Illustrations w/ hotspots, Pictures, Text Templates.
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O
Optical Character Recognition (OCR) – The identification and conversion of printed or handwritten
characters to digital format using an optical scanner and specialized software
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P
Patient Banner – The Patient Banner displays information about the patient whose information is
currently displayed (or is in context). It includes a brief summary of the patient’s demographic
information, including his or her sex, age, date of birth and so forth.
Pharmacy Health Information Exchange™ – A network operated by SureScripts, linking electronic
communications between pharmacies and physicians, allowing the electronic exchange of
prescription information.
Pick lists – Lists of like items organized in a matter to be easily selected.
Point-and-click – A method to enter information into an EHR without typing. This is accomplished by
pointing a mouse or computer pen to a spot on a computer screen and clicking the mouse button to
activate the on-screen item.
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Q
Quicklist – The QuickList is a subset of the favorites list that includes just the items the user selects
most often.
Quicksets – QuickSets are groups of orders and meds that have been previously ordered by that
physician for a particular problem. They provide the user with an efficient way of entering problemrelated orders.
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S
Scanning – A process where paper is copied digitally into the EHR using a scanner and specialized
software.
Slate PCs – A portable computer that is about the size of a paper tablet and weights about 3.5
pounds. The slate PCs come with a computer pen pointing device for entering data on the touchsensitive screen.
Steady State– A practice’s workflows that will be in effect 120 days prior to go-live of the EMR.
SureScripts™ – A vendor who works with EHR vendors and electronic prescribing and pharmacy
technology vendors to connect their solutions to the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange.
SureScripts was founded in 2001 by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) and the
National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of
the overall prescribing process.
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T
Tasks – A TouchWorks task is defined as a request to either supply information or perform an action.
Tasks are both created and completed in the system either manually or automatically (that is,
triggered by the system as a result of specific activities). Utilizing tasks promotes effective
communication and maximizes efficiency.
Text Templates – Text macros with predefined text and text options used to efficiently document the
patient visit within a note.
TouchWorks™ – Allscripts electronic medical records software
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V
Vertical Toolbar (VTB) – The vertical toolbar (VTB) contains all the user menus or workspaces that
have been assigned to a given workplace.
VPN – Virtual Private Network - A communications network tunneled through another network. A
VPN will be necessary for secure communications through the Internet when using clinical
applications outside of Creighton.
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W
Web Client – A software application that is launched via a web browser.
Work Flow – The process by which tasks are done and how tasks interrelate to each other.
Worklist – TouchWorks can manage order and result-related activities from either a patient-centric or
activity-centric (cross patient) workspace. A worklist is a series of orders and resultable orders within
a patient record that meet the criteria defined in the worklist view.
Workplace – The workplace is defined by the user role within the organization. It pertains to
everything that the user sees on the screen (according to security privileges).
Workspace – The largest portion of the page, where users do most of their work, is called the
workspace. The information in the workspace varies based on the selected vertical and horizontal
toolbar buttons.
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