Jargon Buster
The SCATA Jargon Buster is a compilation of many of the confusing terms and acronyms used in Health Informatics. It was compiled from various sources and is maintained by the SCATA membership.
If you are are a SCATA member, you can add and edit jargon terms from the member's area
Non-members can use the contact page to submit a new term or acronym, or to update an existing one.
Term or Acronym | Definition | Explanation |
Health Informatics |
| ‘The knowledge, skills and tools which enable information to be collected, managed, used and shared to support the delivery of healthcare and to promote health.’ |
HEPMA |
Hospital Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration | GPs have been prescribing electronically for many years so it is reasonable to conclude that this could be introduced into hospitals without much trouble. The hard bit is the management of the medicines administration which has to be able to cope with all the complexities of frequent changes to the ‘Kardex’, routes of administration other than oral etc. |
HES |
Hospital Episode Statistics | These are made up from mandatory returns from each organisation and can be seen on the Department of Health website. |
HL7 |
Health Level 7 | A standards group in the USA. Often used in the context of ‘structured messages’ used to send clinical information between computer systems, e.g. EPR and RIS. The mission of HL7 is to: “To provide standards for the exchange, management and integration of data that support clinical patient care and the management, delivery and evaluation of healthcare services. Specifically, to create flexible, cost effective approaches, standards, guidelines, methodologies, and related services for interoperability between healthcare information systems.” |
HTML |
Hypertext Markup Language | HTML is a special kind of text document that is used by Web browsers to present text and graphics. The text includes markup tags such as <p> to indicate the start of a paragraph, and </p> to indicate the end of a paragraph. HTML documents are often refered to as "Web pages". The browser retrieves Web pages from Web servers that thanks to the Internet, can be pretty much anywhere in World. See http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/Guide/ |