Reference Information

Healthcare IT Consortia

American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA)
CCHIT Testing and Certification of EHRs
Personal Connected Health Alliance (PCHAlliance) is working to advance patient/consumer-centered health, wellness and disease prevention.
Cypress Project
Open Source EHR Clinical Quality Measure Testing & Certification Tool
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)
HIMSS focuses on the optimal use of information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of healthcare.
openEHR
'openEHR' is the name of a technology for e-health, consisting of open specifications, clinical models and software that can be used to create standards, and build information and interoperability solutions for healthcare.
West Health Institute
Learn about Medical Device Interoperability

Standards Development Organizations

Accredited Standards Committee X12 (ASC X1)
Produces insurance claims standards
ASTM
ASTM is a globally recognized leader in international voluntary consensus standards. The ASTM committee E31 on Healthcare Informatics develops standards related to the architecture, content, security, confidentiality, functionality, and communication of information used in healthcare.
CDISC
CDISC is a global, open, non-profit organization that has established standards to support the acquisition, exchange, submission and archive of clinical research data and metadata.
DICOM (NEMA)
Medical Digital Imaging Standards managed by the Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance.
About DICOM.
GS1
The GS1 Standards enable the realization in the Healthcare sector of all health and economic benefits related to automatic identification, traceability, and data synchronization. Healthcare specific standards already ratified:

Health Level Seven (HL7)
HL7 produces clinical messaging, document-interchange and service standards.
Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) - USA
IHE oversees the creation of detailed guidelines that use multiple standards to build interoperable healthcare IT systems.
International Health Terminology Standards Development Organization (IHTSDO)
IHTSDO maintains SNOMED CT (Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms), considered to be the most comprehensive, multilingual clinical healthcare terminology in the world.
ISO TC215
Health Informatics Committee with a scope of Standardization in the field of information for health, and Health Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to promote interoperability between independent systems, to enable compatibility and consistency for health information and data, as well as to reduce duplication of effort and redundancies.
Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC)
Regenstrief Institute maintains LOINC, which facilitates the exchange and pooling of clinical observations, especially laboratory results.
NCPDP
National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) Produces e-Prescribing and retail pharmacy claims standards (chiefly used in the U.S.)






Acronyms

These acronyms are commonly found in the information provided on this site.

  • CAH: Critical Access Hospital
  • CDA: Clinical Document Architecture
  • CDC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • CDS: Clinical Decision Support
  • CEHRT: Certified EHR Technology
  • CFR: Code of Federal Regulations
  • CHPL: Certified HIT Products List
  • CMS: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
  • CQM: Clinical Quality Measure
  • EH: Eligible Hospital
  • EHR: Electronic Health Record
  • EP: Eligible Professional
  • HHS: Department of Health and Human Services
  • HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996
  • HIT: Health Information Technology
  • HITECH: Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health
  • HITPC: HIT Policy Committee
  • HITSC: HIT Standards Committee
  • HL7: Health Level Seven
  • ICD–9–CM: International Classification of Diseases, 9th Revision, Clinical Modification
  • ICD–10: International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision
  • ICD–10–CM: International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification
  • ICD–10–PCS: International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Procedure Coding System
  • IHE: Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise®
  • LOINC®: Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes
  • MU: Meaningful Use
  • ONC: Office of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology
  • NCPDP: National Council for Prescription Drug Programs
  • NIST: National Inst of Standards & Tech
  • PHSA: Public Health Service Act
  • SNOMED CT®: Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms