an executive who is responsible for

overseeing all of an organization’s initiatives

related to health informatics and patient
records. While they can be involved in specific
Chief Medical Information Officer
projects, such as software launches and new
process development, they also draft and
implement strategic plans related to the long-
term IT infrastructure of the organization.
compile and analyze health data and then use
that analysis to adjust their organization’s
Clinical Informatics Analysts
practices, processes, and workflows to
improve patient outcomes.
are project managers who focus specifically
on projects related to health informatics. They
Health Information Technology are responsible for performing all of the
Project Managers primary duties of a project manager, including
initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, and
closing the project.
are professionals employed by healthcare
organizations, often on a contract or project
basis. Their job is to advise the organization
on all informaticsrelated questions,
Health Informatics Consultants challenges, and initiatives. They typically
assist in a wide variety of projects, including
selecting and installing new software, updating
and securing networks, monitoring and
troubleshooting systems and training teams.
are responsible for bridging the gap between
clinical and IT — for example, the role might
involve evaluating a health care facility to
determine what clinical IT applications will
Informatics Nurses help increase efficiency, then training staff and
on any new systems and technology.
Informatics nurses also facilitate
communication between IT, vendors and the
staff.
raw and unorganized fact that required to be
Data
processed to make it meaningful.
set of data which is processed in a meaningful
Information
way according to the given requirement.
 information that is justifiably considered to be
Knowledge
true
critical use of knowledge to make intelligent
Wisdom
decisions
is a database system that collects, integrates
and stores clinical data from a variety of
clinical data warehouse
sources including electronic health records,
radiology and other information systems.
is a Harvard project used by many other
i2b2
academic institutions in the US
the application of computers and technology in
Health information technology
healthcare settings
the application of computers, communications
and information technology and systems to all
Medical informatics fields of medicine - medical care, medical
education and medical research. MF Collen,
MEDINFO '80, Tokyo
is the rapidly developing scientific field that
deals with resources, devices and formalized
methods for optimizing the storage, retrieval
Medical informatics and management of biomedical information for
problem solving and decisionmaking. Edward
Shortliffe, M.D., Ph.D. What is medical
informatics? Stanford University, 1995.
is the branch of science concerned with the
use of computers and communication
technology to acquire, store, analyze,
communicate, and display medical information
Medical informatics and knowledge to facilitate understanding and
improve the accuracy, timeliness, and
reliability of decisionmaking. Warner,
Sorenson and Bouhaddou, Knowledge
Engineering in Health Informatics, 1997
is an arrangement of data (information),
processes, people, and information
information system technology that interact to collect, process,
store, and provide as output the information
needed to support the organization
Healthcare information system a group of systems used to support and
(and hospital information system) enhance healthcare
the individual who receives healthcare, often
Patient called a consumer or citizen when they are
well
those who “provide” healthcare, e.g.,
Provider
physicians, nurses, allied health providers
those who buy healthcare, usually employers
Purchaser
or the government
those who “pay” the healthcare system, i.e.,
Payor
the insurance companies and government
Public health protectors of the public’s health
contains primarily administrative or financial
Administrative Information System data and is generally used to support the
(or an administrative application) management functions and general operations
of the healthcare organization
contains clinical or health-related information
Clinical Information System (or
used by providers in diagnosing and treating a
clinical application)
patient and monitoring that patient’s care
is a digitized version of hand-written paper
Electronic Medical Records records maintained at the office of medical
specialists.
software program that allows for connection to
web browser web servers over the Internet using Hypertext
Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
an implementation of a markup language, or
method for defining formatting of text in a
HTML
document, which has become synonymous
with the Web
is a node which directs the packets on the
Internet
router
direct messages between networks and the
Internet
is a specified address to a specific resource;
URL the first part of the URL is the protocol
identifier and the rest is the resource name
 are task specific applications which are
deployed in a platform independent manner
Web services via a series of transactions to and from other
web-aware applications/services over a
network (such as the Internet)
are lightweight services which use existing
RESTful Internet infrastructure and World Wide Web
(WWW) concepts as their backbone
is a means of communicating the content type
MIME Type used within a message transferred over the
Internet.
is based on SOAP, a protocol standard for
SOA
interacting with web services
a communication protocol between
applications. It is a XML-based platform
SOAP
neutral format for the invocation and response
of web services functions over a network
a XML document used to describe and locate
web services. A WSDL can inform a calling
application as to the functionality available
WSDL
from a given service, as well as the structure
and types of function arguments and
responses
a directory for storing information about web
services, described by WSDL. UDDI utilizes
UDDI the SOAP protocol for providing access to
WSDL documents necessary for interacting
with services indexed
is a group of computers that are linked
network
together in order to share information
is the size of the pipe to transmit packets (a
Bandwidth formatted data unit carried by a packet mode
computer network)
is the latency or delay in receiving a packet.
End-to-end delay
With fiber optics the latency is minimal
is the random variation in packet delay and
Jitter
reflects Internet spikes in activity
is a close proximity network designed to link
PANs
phones, computers, PDAs, etc.
 is also known as a body sensor network which
BANs
is gaining importance in healthcare
generally refer to linked computers in an
LANs office, hospital, home or close proximity
situation
connect computers to one another and
prevent delay
switches
are like traffic cops that direct simultaneous
messages in the right direction
An electronic record of health-related
information on an individual that conforms to
nationally recognized interoperability
Electronic Health Record standards and that can be created, managed
and consulted by authorized clinicians and
staff across more than one healthcare
organization
is an EHR feature that processes orders for
Computerized Physician Order medications, lab tests, imaging, consults and
Entry other diagnostic tests. It is not the same as
electronic prescribing
EPs as doctors of medicine or osteopathy,
doctors of dental surgery or dental medicine,
Medicare
doctors of podiatric medicine, doctors of
optometry and chiropractors
EPs as physicians, nurse practitioners,
Medicaid certified nurse midwives, dentists and
physician assistants
a standard document established by
consensus and approved by a recognized
body that provides for common and repeated
standard
use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for
activities or their results, aimed at the optimum
degree of order in a given context.
 the ability of a system or product to work with
other systems or products without special
effort on the part of the customer.
Interoperability is made possible by the
interoperability
implementation of standards.
“the ability of two or more systems or
components to exchange information and to
use the information that has been exchanged”.
is the organization that develops and supports
HL7 standards and is properly called HL7
International
is the “electronic movement of health-related
Health Information Exchange information among organizations according to
nationally recognized standards”
is “an organization that oversees and governs
the exchange of health-related information
Health Information Organization
among organizations according to nationally
recognized standards”
is “a health information organization that
brings together health care stakeholders
Regional Health Information within a defined geographic area and governs
Organization health information exchange among them for
the purpose of improving health and care in
that community.”