| Common Name |
Organization |
Function |
| ACC/AHA |
American College of Cardiology / American Heart Association |
The ACC and AHA, among other quality initiatives, author clinical guidelines, establish standards and data dictionaries, and develop performance measures. |
| AHIC |
American Health Information Community |
Accelerates the development and adoption of HIT methods such as interoperability technology, public policy, etc. Note: AHIC goes away by design after Bush’s term. The plans are to transform it to a government/private coalition “AHIC 2.0” in 2008. |
| AHRQ |
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality |
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is the lead Federal agency charged with improving the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of healthcare for all Americans. As one of 12 agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, AHRQ supports health services research that will improve the quality of health care and promote evidence-based decision-making. |
Alliance
(NAHIT)
|
National Alliance for Health Information Technology |
The Alliance promotes the adoption of health technology, interoperability, patient safety, quality and consumer involvement |
| AMIA |
American Medical Informatics Association |
Development and application of biomedical and health informatics in the support of patient care, teaching, research, and health care administration. Historically an academic focused group. |
| AQA |
National Quality Alliance |
Formerly Ambulatory Quality Alliance.
The mission of AQA Alliance, a broad based collaborative of physicians, consumers, purchasers, health insurance plans and others, is to improve health care quality and patient safety through a collaborative process in which key stakeholders agree on a strategy for measuring performance at the physician or group level; collecting and aggregating data in the least burdensome way; and reporting meaningful information to consumers, physicians, and other stakeholders to inform choices and improve outcomes. |
| Cardio-HIT |
Physicians Advancing Health Information Technology (HIT) to Improve Cardiovascular Care |
AMA pilot program to improve CV care using evidence-based, nationally-recognized, physician clinical performance measures integrated into electronic health record systems. |
| CCHIT |
Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology |
Independent, private-sector initiative to create an efficient, credible and sustainable product certification program. |
| CDISC |
Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium |
Develops global, platform-independent data standards that enable interoperability. |
| CMS |
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services |
US federal agency which administers Medicare, Medicaid, and the State Children's Health Insurance Program. |
| CMSS |
Council of Medical Specialty Societies |
Independent forum for discussion of national issues of interest among medical specialty societies. |
| Connecting for Health |
Connecting for Health |
A public-private collaborative with representatives from more than 100 organizations across the spectrum of health care stakeholders. Its purpose is to catalyze the widespread changes necessary to realize the full benefits of health information technology, while protecting patient privacy and the security of personal health information. |
| Consortium |
AMA-convened Physician Consortium for Performance Improvement |
Develops, tests, and maintains evidence-based clinical performance measures and measurement resources for physicians. The Consortium works with a number of societies including the ACC and AHA. |
| DICOM |
Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine |
DICOM is a global information technology standards producing body. The standards it produces are designed to ensure the interoperability of systems used to produce, store, display, process, send, retrieve, query and print medical images and derived structured documents as well as to manage related workflow. DICOM is used in virtually all hospitals worldwide. |
| EHRVA |
Electronic Health Record Vendor Association |
A trade association of Electronic Health Record (EHR) vendors that addresses national efforts to create interoperable EHRs in hospitals and ambulatory care settings. |
| HITSP |
Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel |
Public/private partnership to achieve standards that specifically support interoperability within the National Health Information Network. |
| HIMSS |
Health Information and Management Systems Society |
HIMSS is the healthcare industry's membership organization exclusively focused on providing leadership for the optimal use of healthcare information technology (IT) and management systems for the betterment of healthcare. |
| HL7 |
Health Level Seven |
HL7 is an ANSI accredited standards developing organization that focuses on clinical and administrative data and provides standards for interoperability. |
| IHE |
Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise |
IHE is a multi-year initiative that creates the framework for passing vital health information seamlessly-from application to application, system to system, and setting to setting across the entire healthcare enterprise. |
| LOINC Database |
Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes |
LOINC is a database and universal standard for identifying laboratory observations. It was developed and is maintained by the Regenstrief Institute, Inc. Since its inception, the database has expanded to include not just medical and laboratory code names, but also: nursing diagnosis, nursing interventions, outcomes classification, and patient care data set. |
| NCDR |
National Cardiovascular Data Registries |
NCDR is the ACC’s confidential quality
measurement program for cardiac and vascular facilities. |
| NCQA |
National Committee for Quality Assurance |
A private, 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving healthcare quality. NCQA operates a variety of accreditation, certification, recognition, and public reporting programs, and develops the HEDIS performance measures. |
| NIST |
National Institute of Standards and Technology |
NIST is a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce. The institute's mission is to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve quality of life. |
| NQF |
National Quality Forum |
The NQF is a not-for-profit membership organization created to develop and implement a national strategy for health care quality measurement and reporting. |
| ONC (formerly ONCHIT) |
Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology |
The ONC provides counsel to the Secretary of HHS and Departmental leadership for the development and nationwide implementation of an interoperable health information technology infrastructure. |
| PEHRC |
Physicians EHR Coalition |
This coalition of over 20 medical societies helps physicians, particularly those in small- and medium-sized ambulatory care medical practice, to acquire and use affordable, standards-based electronic health records and other health information technology to improve quality, enhance patient safety, and increase efficiency. |
| SNOMED |
Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine |
SNOMED is a systematically organized computer processable collection of medical terminology covering most areas of clinical information such as diseases, findings, procedures, microorganisms, pharmaceuticals etc. It allows a consistent way to index, store, retrieve, and aggregate clinical data across specialties and sites of care. It also helps organizing the content of medical records, reducing the variability in the way data is captured, encoded and used for clinical care of patients and research. |
