Understanding Healthcare Technology Acronyms
As a developer today you are required to understand and use many different technologies. When you are creating applications for specific kinds of business areas, like Healthcare for example, the number of technologies and their acronyms can explode exponentially.
Everyone is familiar with acronyms like HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) or PHI (Protected Health Information). If you are developing applications that use PHI, you already know about the rules associated with these areas. Let’s talk about some other acronyms used in healthcare technology that you may not be familiar with.
HL7 (Health Level Seven International: HL7 is an international standard used to ensure interoperability between healthcare information systems, such as electronic health records (EHRs), laboratory systems, pharmacy systems, and other healthcare-related systems.
FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources): is a standard for exchanging healthcare information electronically. FHIR was developed by HL7 and is based on web technologies such as RESTful APIs and JSON data format, making it easy to integrate with existing healthcare systems and applications. Besides Clinical Data exchange, HL7 and FHIR are used to enable Public Health Reporting, Medical Device Interoperability and Physician Clinical Decision Support.
DICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine): DICOM is a standard for storing, transmitting, and exchanging medical images in a digital format and is used to transmit various medical imaging test results such as X-ray, MRI, CT, and ultrasound. DICOM specifies the format for the images and provides a standard way for different medical imaging devices to communicate with each other and with other healthcare information systems. Besides image storage, DICOM is also used for Image Management, Analysis and sharing. Additionally, DICOM is very useful in the training of healthcare professionals.
PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System): PACS is a system used in healthcare to store, retrieve, manage, and distribute medical images and related information. It is typically used in conjunction with medical imaging tests, such as X-ray, CT, MRI, and ultrasound. A PACS system would implement a DICOM interface to transmit and communicate with other healthcare systems such as electronic health records (EHRs) and radiology information systems (RISs). PACS is commonly used for Radiology Image Management, Remote Image Access and Image Sharing. Additionally, PACS is used for the integration of Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems.
Do you have questions about Healthcare Technology, need to develop a Healthcare App or Mobile App, or integrate with external medical systems? Gate6 has a team ready to assist. Check out our HealthCare page or give us a call!
Written by Bob Cody
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