Health Information Technology: A Glossary

If you’re writing about electronic health records, you’ll want to get familiar with
these terms, defined by veteran health information technology journalist Neil
Versel.

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA): The $787 billion economic
stimulus legislation enacted in February 2009.

Electronic health record (EHR): At least in theory, an EHR is a comprehensive

digital collection of information about an individual’s health and medical status that
encompasses multiple care settings. It often is used interchangeably with EMR.

Electronic medical record (EMR): This term generally refers to a record tied to a
single facility or organization.

Health information exchange (HIE): As a verb, it refers to the secure transfer of

electronic health information between organizations. As a noun, HIE is a network
that facilitates data transfer.

Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act

(HITECH): The portion of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act related to
health IT.

Meaningful Use: The standard that doctors and hospitals will have to meet to
qualify for Medicare and Medicaid bonus payments for using electronic records
beginning in 2011.

Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN): This is the name for the
federal government’s future vision of a kind of health-specific version of the
Internet, essentially a decentralized network of HIEs.

Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

(ONC): Created by executive order in 2004 and codified by the ARRA legislation in
2009, this office within the Department of Health and Human Services provides
health IT leadership within the federal government and helps craft health IT policy.

Personal health record (PHR): This term denotes a record that patients can view,
update and control who access to. Though there are many companies offering
PHRs, consumer and physician acceptance is minimal.

Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO): This term was popular in

the mid-to-late 2000s, but mostly has been superseded by “HIE.”