current
For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions
| Term/Acronym/Abbreviation | Description |
|---|---|
| Application Programming Interface (API) | A set of standard software interrupts, calls, functions, and data formats that can be used by an application program to access network services, devices, applications, or operating systems. |
| Clinical Document Repository (CDR) | A structured, systematically collected store house of patient-specific clinical data. 2. A centralized database that allows organizations to collect, store, access, and report on clinical, administrative, and financial information, collected from various applications within or across the healthcare organization that provides an open environment for accessing/viewing, managing, and reporting enterprise information |
| Digital Health Information Exchange (DHIEX) | A regulatory framework that gives Ontario Health the ability to define and implement the health information standards and requirements for use in interoperability specifications. It regulates digital health information exchange in Ontario for consistent sharing of meaningful health information across health systems for the benefit of patients and health care providers. |
| digital health asset | Any solution that consumes, contributes, stores, presents, generates, or facilitates the flow of health and wellness information in Ontario’s health care system. |
| Electronic Health Record (EHR) | A) Computer-based clinical data for an individual across multiple locations. This longitudinal health record includes data from a number of different interoperable EMRs and EPRs and is shared across multiple jurisdictions. B) A longitudinal electronic record of a patient health information generated by one or more encounters in any care delivery setting. Included in this information are patient demographics, progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, laboratory data, and radiology reports and images. The EHR automates and streamlines the clinician’s workflow. The EHR has the ability to generate a complete record of a clinical patient encounter, as well as supporting other care-related activities directly or indirectly via interface; including evidence-based decision support, quality management, and outcomes reporting. |
| Electronic Medical Record (EMR) | An application environment that is composed of the clinical data repository, clinical decision support, controlled medical vocabulary, order entry, computerized practitioner order entry, and clinical documentation implementations. This environment supports the patient's electronic medical record across inpatient and outpatient environments, and is used by healthcare practitioners to document, monitor, and manage the healthcare delivery. |
| HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources Standard (FHIR) | Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR, pronounced "Fire") is a standard for exhanging healthcare information electronically that defines a set of "Resources" that represent granular clinical concepts. The resources can be managed in isolation, or aggregated into complex documents. Technically, FHIR is designed for the web; the resources are based on simple XML or JSON structures, with an http-based RESTful protocol where each resource has predictable URL. Where possible, open internet standards are used for data representation. |
| Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) | The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) provides a right of access to records held by public bodies and regulates how public bodies manage personal information. |
| Health Card Number (HCN) | Health number consists of a 10 digit personal health number. A version code identifies the specific health card of the card holder |
| health care practitioner (HCP) | A person who is a member within the meaning of the Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991 who provides health care; a person registered as a drugless practitioner under the Drugless Practitioners Act who provides health care; a person who is a member of the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers who provides health care; and any other person whose primary function is to provide health care for payment. |
| Health Information Custodian (HIC) | Person or organization collecting, using, or disclosing personal health information for care and treatment, planning and management of the health system, or health research. In general, persons involved in delivering health care services are included. |
| Health Information Network Provider (HINP) | Health information network provider” or “provider” means a person who provides services to two or more health information custodians where the services are provided primarily to custodians to enable the custodians to use electronic means to disclose personal health information to one another, whether or not the person is an agent of any of the custodians. |
| Hospital Information System (HIS) | A comprehensive, knowledge-based system used in a hospital setting, capable of providing information to all who need it to make sound decisions about health. |
| Health Level Seven (HL7) | Health Level Seven International is one of several American National Standards Institute (ANSI) -accredited Standards Developing Organizations (SDOs) operating in the healthcare arena. Most SDOs produce standards (sometimes called specifications or protocols) for a particular healthcare domain such as pharmacy, medical devices, imaging or insurance (claims processing) transactions. Health Level Seven's domain is clinical and administrative data. |
| Health Service Provider (HSP) | A person or entity that operates a hospital within the meaning of the Public Hospitals Act or a private hospital within the meaning of the Private Hospitals Act. |
| Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) | A communication link protocol used by web servers and browsers to transfer/exchange HTML documents or files (text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia files) over the Internet. |
| Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) | A communication link protocol protects data transmission between a user's web browser and a website. It is the secure version of HTTP |
| Integrated Assessment Record (IAR) | The Integrated Assessment Record (IAR) provides a central repository for clinical assessment data collected from health information custodian (HICs) classes. Assessment information (e.g. from child and youth mental health), collected at the point of care, can be shared within the client’s circle of care in a timely, secure, and privacy-protected manner. As a client moves through the continuum of care, consented assessments are accessible by the clinicians providing care. |
| Integrated Assessment Record Clinical Document Repository (IAR CDR) | The centralized data repository for the IAR. |
| Implementation Guide (IG) | A document explaining the proper use of a standard for a specific purpose. 2. Method for standardized installation and maintenance of computer software and hardware. The implementation guidelines include recommended administrative processes and span the devices’ lifecycle. |
| Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC) | An independent oversight body responsible for educating the public concerning their rights under FIPPA and MFIPPA, and ensuring organizations fulfill their obligations under these Acts. |
| JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) | A text format that is completely language independent but uses conventions that are familiar to programmers of the C-family of languages, including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, Perl, Python, and many others. These properties make JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) an ideal data-interchange language. |
| Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC) | LOINC – Logical Observation Identifiers, Names and Codes – is a universal code system for tests, measurements, and observations. It provides a common language (set of identifiers, names, and codes) for clinical and laboratory observations; a rich catalog of measurements, including laboratory tests, clinical measures like vital signs and anthropomorphic measures, standardized survey instruments, and more. Logical Observation Identifiers, Names and Codes is a standard which enables the exchange and aggregation of clinical results for care delivery, outcomes management, and research by providing a set of universal codes and structured names to unambiguously identify things you can measure or observe. |
| Medical Record Number (MRN) | The medical record number is organization specific. The number is used by the hospital as a systematic documentation of a patient´s medical history and care during each hospital stay. |
| Ontario Health (OH) | An agency created by the Government of Ontario to connect, coordinate and modernize the province’s health care system byworking with partners, providers and patients to make the health system more efficient so everyone in Ontario has an opportunity for better health and wellbeing. |
| Ontario Regulation 329/04 made under PHIPA. (O. Reg. 329/04) | A legislation which outlines general guidelines concerning health information custodianship, the responsibilities of eHealth Ontario relating to health information, and allowable use of the health number. |
| Provincial Client Regiry (PCR) | The definitive source for a health care client’s identity, facilitating the unique, accurate and reliable identification of individual clients and others who receive care in Ontario, across the disciplines in the health care sector. It contains demographic and identification cross-reference data for health care clients registered in one or more patient identifier domains for which eHealth Ontario, as a result of policy/program/IT decisions, has established a data sharing agreement with the respective organizations. The PCR is fed by multiple data sources, including the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care Registered Persons Data Base hospital sites tracking admissions, discharges, and transfers, and other systems that participate in health care services. |
| personal health information (PHI) | Identifying information about an individual in oral or recorded form, if the information, (a) relates to the physical or mental health of the individual, including information that consists of the health history of the individual’s family, (b) relates to the providing of health care to the individual, including the identification of a person as a provider of health care to the individual, (c) is a plan of service within the meaning of the Home Care and Community Services Act, 1994 for the individual, (d) relates to payments or eligibility for health care, or eligibility for coverage for health care, in respect of the individual, (e) relates to the donation by the individual of any body part or bodily substance of the individual or is derived from the testing or examination of any such body part or bodily substance, (f) is the individual’s health number, or (g) identifies an individual’s substitute decision-maker. 2004, c. 3, Sched. A, s. 4 (1); 2007, c. 8, s. 224 (6); 2007, c. 10, Sched. H, s. 2. |
| Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) | An Act: a) to establish rules for the collection, use and disclosure of personal health information about individuals that protect the confidentiality of that information and the privacy of individuals with respect to that information, while facilitating the effective provision of health care; b) to provide individuals with a right of access to personal health information about themselves, subject to limited and specific exceptions set out in this Act; c) to provide individuals with a right to require the correction or amendment of personal health information about themselves, subject to limited and specific exceptions set out in this Act; d) to provide for independent review and resolution of complaints with respect to personal health information; e) to provide effective remedies for contraventions of this Act. |
| personal information (PI) | Information about an identifiable individual, such as name, address, telephone number, but does not include this information for an employee of an organization. |
| prescribed organization (PO) | The organization prescribed in Ontario Regulation 329/04 as the organization for the purposes of Part V.1 of PHIPA. The Prescribed Organization has the power and the duty to develop and maintain the EHR in accordance with Part V.1 of PHIPA and the regulations made thereunder. |
| Release 4 of the HL7 FHIR standard (R4) | Release 4 of the HL7 FHIR standard |
| Systemized Nomenclature of Medicine - Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) | A dynamic, scientifically validated clinical health care terminology and infrastructure that makes health care knowledge more usable and accessible. The SNOMED-CT Core Terminology provides a common language that enables a consistent way of capturing, sharing and aggregating health data across specialties and sites of care. |
| Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) | A sequence of characters that identifies a logical or physical resource. URL is an example of a type of URI. |
| Extensible Markup Language (XML) | General-purpose markup language for creating special-purpose markup languages. It is a simplified subset of standard generalized markup language (SGML), capable of describing many different kinds of data. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of data across different systems, particularly systems connected via the internet. |