Module 5: Healthcare Informatics, Analytics, and Data Use

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering health IT systems, EHR functions, data standards, interoperability frameworks, data analytics types, consumer health informatics, and HIM roles from Chapters 11 and 12.

Federal Health IT Strategic Plan

A federal strategic plan that provides driving forces and principles for how health IT should support patient care, public health, and medical research.

Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC)

A federal agency whose initiatives shape health IT principles—such as patient access, interoperability, and security—and influence what vendors build, what providers implement, and how data are exchanged across organizations.

Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act

Federal legislation that promotes the adoption and meaningful use of health IT, advances interoperability, and establishes standards and criteria for certified EHR technology (CEHRT).

21st Century Cures Act

Legislation that promotes interoperability and patient access to health data, requiring the immediate electronic availability of test results to patients and providers unless an information blocking exception applies.

Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR)

A modern standard that defines how healthcare information can be exchanged between systems, enabling app connectivity via application programming interfaces (APIs).

Personal Health Record (PHR)

A private, secure record containing personal health data that is created, managed, and controlled by the individual, distinct from a provider-controlled EHR.

Patient Portal

A secure patient-facing tool that provides direct electronic access to health records, allowing patients to review visit summaries, view lab results, schedule appointments, request medication refills, and communicate with clinicians.

Decision Support System (DSS)

An information system—frequently used interchangeably with Business Intelligence (BI)—composed of databases (containing structured and unstructured data), software systems, and user interfaces designed to support organizational decision-making.

Business Intelligence (BI)

Analytics tools and dashboards that pull structured and unstructured data from EHR and billing systems to display metrics such as readmission rates, case mix index, and quality measures for healthcare leadership.

Terminology Standards

Standardized rules that define common healthcare vocabularies and code sets (such as SNOMED CT and ICD) to ensure consistent clinical meaning when exchanging health data.

Communication Protocols

Agreed-upon rules that establish the structure, timing, and content for transmitting electronic messages between different healthcare information systems.

Interoperability

The capability of software systems, devices, or entities to connect, communicate, and exchange data without requiring extra effort from the end user.

Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA)

A federal interoperability framework designed to establish a nationwide 'network of networks' enabling patient health data to follow individuals securely across health systems and state lines.

System Development Life Cycle (SDLC)

A structured framework consisting of stages—including planning, analysis, design, implementation, testing, and maintenance—used by healthcare organizations to choose, build, and optimize health IT systems.

Data Analytics

The science of examining raw data to draw conclusions, identify patterns, and support healthcare decision-making, quality improvement, and operations.

Descriptive Analytics

A type of analytics that summarizes and describes historical data to explain what has happened in the past (e.g., past readmission rates).

Diagnostic Analytics

A type of analytics that investigates data to explain why a specific healthcare event or outcome occurred by discovering underlying root causes.

Predictive Analytics

A type of analytics that analyzes current and historical facts to forecast future trends or what is likely to happen next (e.g., flagging high-risk patients).

Prescriptive Analytics

A type of analytics that utilizes data insights to recommend specific clinical or operational actions designed to achieve desired healthcare outcomes.

Administrative Data

Healthcare data elements comprising financial details and patient consent documentation that drive operational workflows and the revenue cycle.

Clinical Data

Direct patient care data—such as laboratory values, condition counts, progress notes, and medication lists—used to guide treatment choices and quality measurements.

Steps to Prepare Raw Data

The sequential three-step procedure required before insights can be derived from raw healthcare information: data capture → data provisioning → data analysis.

Data Mining

The process of extracting and analyzing large volumes of data from repositories and data warehouses to identify hidden patterns, uncover correlations, and predict future behaviors.

Digital Health

A broad discipline involving digital technologies utilized to manage diseases and promote wellness, aiming to expand access, reduce costs, enhance efficiency, and improve care quality.

mHealth (Mobile Health)

The practice of medicine and public health supported by mobile devices, smartphones, mobile applications, and wearable monitoring devices.

Health Literacy

The degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, evaluate, communicate, and use health information to make informed decisions regarding their care.

Telehealth

The use of digital telecommunications technologies to deliver healthcare services remotely, monitor chronic illnesses, track clinical data, and manage patient health across physical distances.

Health Information Exchange (HIE)

The electronic mobilization and exchange of healthcare information across multiple clinical providers and organizations to enhance care coordination, safety, and efficiency.

Forms of Health Information Exchange

The three recognized exchange models for sharing clinical data: directed exchange, query-based exchange, and consumer-mediated exchange.

eHealth Exchange

A nationwide health information network wherein partners contractually agree to securely exchange clinical records using shared standards (such as HL7 and FHIR).

Information Blocking

Any practice that unreasonably interferes with, prevents, or materially discourages access, exchange, or use of electronic health information, except where required by law or permitted by specific exceptions.

Deterministic and Probabilistic Matching

Demographic algorithm-based techniques applied to patient identity matching to prevent duplicate master patient index (MPI) entries, record fragmentation, and incorrect patient identification.

UNESCO AI Ethics Principles

International ethical principles designed to guide emerging AI technologies, focusing on the promotion of human rights, environmental and ecosystem flourishing, diversity and inclusiveness, and peaceful, just societies.