Health Information Exchange - Terms You Should Know

Glossary

Events

Resources

A geographically or functionally defined entity operating with formal structure and established policies and procedures to enable the secure and reliable electronic exchange of patient data between and among authorized health care stakeholders in a defined geographic or political area to facilitate improvements in healthcare delivery, quality, safety, and coordination or care.

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Access
The process of obtaining data from, or placing into a computer system or storage device. It refers to such actions by any individual or entity that has the appropriate authorization for such actions.

Administrative Safeguards
Administrative actions, and policies and procedures to manage the selection, development, implementation and maintenance of security measures to protect electronic health information and to manage the conduct of the covered entity’s workforce in relation to the protection of that information.

AHCA
Agency for Health Care Administration (State of Florida)

AHRQ
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (Federal Health and Human Services Department)

Annual Support & Maintenance
Costs that are typically 15-20% of the software license costs. Where the actual license is normally a one-time fee, the support and maintenance costs are renewed on a yearly basis. This yearly fee basically covers two areas: any upgrades or new releases; and customer service and support. It should be noted that both vendor EHR software and third party software will need support, so it is important to determine which components the support costs cover. Also, some vendors might have more than one service level agreement representing different support options at different costs.

ANSI (American National Standards Institute)
A broad based agency charged with overseeing voluntary standards development for everything from computers to household products. ANSI accredits standards development organizations (SDO) based on their consensus process, then reviews and officially approves the SDO recommendations.

Architecture
The orderly arrangement of parts; structure.

ASP (Application Service Provider)
Application service provider is remote software that you access through a web browser. Instead of installing megabytes of software on your local C drive, you simply rent the use of some ASP software that exists elsewhere on the Internet. You never really own ASP software, you borrow it for a fee.

ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials)
American Society for Testing and Materials develops standards on characteristics and performance of materials, products, systems, and services. There are numerous standards-writing technical committees. E31 is the Committee on Computerized Systems and E31.28 is the subcommittee on Healthcare Informatics responsible for the Continuity of Care (CCR) standard.

Asymmetric Key System
A system that uses different keys for encryption and decryption. Within such a system, it is computationally infeasible to determine the decryption key (which is kept private) from the encryption key (which is made publicly available).

Attribute
A characteristic or property.

Audit Trail
Chronological record of system activity, which enables the reconstruction of information regarding the creation, distribution, modification, and deletion of data.

Authentication
Verification of the identity of a person or process.

Authorization
The role or set of permissions for information system activity assigned to an individual.

Availability
Data or information is accessible and useable upon demand by an authorized person.

BAA
Business Associate Agreement

BBRHIO
Big Bend RHIO

Biometric Authentication Technology
Technology that uses some human biological feature (e.g. fingerprint, voice pattern, retina scan, or signature dynamics) to uniquely identify an individual.

CCHIT
Certification Committee for Healthcare Information Technology

CCR- Continuity of Care Record
A standard specification being developed jointly by ASTM International, the Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS), the Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS), the American Academy of Family Physic ian s (AAFP), and the American Academy of Pediatrics. It is intended to foster and improve continuity of patient care, to reduce medical errors, and to assure at least a minimum standard of health information transportability when a patient is referred or transferred to, or is otherwise seen by, another provider.

CDA - Clinical Document Architecture
A HL7 standard for the representation and machine processing of clinical documents in a way which makes the documents both human readable and machine processable, and guarantees preservation of the content by using the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) standard. . It is a useful an intuitive approach to management of documents which make up a large part of the clinical information processing arena.

CDSS
Clinical Decision Support

Certification Authority (CA)
The entity providing third party trust within Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).

Certification/Conformance Testing
Testing of a product for the existence of specific features, functions, or characteristics required by a standard in order to determine the extent to which that product satisfies the standard requirements.

CFRHIO
Central Florida RHIO

Chief Complaint Mapper
A software product that maps chief complaints, captured as text, and transforms them into useful digital data that can be used in functions such as public health outbreak surveillance.

Clinical Classification
A method of grouping clinical concepts in order to represent classes that support the generation of indicators of health status and health statistics.

Clinical Data Repository
The data warehouse that contains clinical data (HL7 messages) centrally.

Clinical Messaging
The communication among providers involved in the care process that can range from real time communication (for example, fulfillment of an injection while the patient is in the exam room), to asynchronous communication (for example, consult reports between physicians).

Clinical Reminders (Clinical Guideline Prompts)
The ability to remind clinicians to consider certain actions at a particular point in time, such as prompts to ask the patient appropriate preventive medicine questions, notifications that ordered tests have not produced results when expected, and suggestions for certain therapeutic actions, such as giving a tetanus shot if one has not been given for 10 years.

Clinical User Authentication
The process used by the HIE to determine the identity of the person accessing the system with adequate certainty to maintain security and confidentiality of personal health information and to administer with certainty of identity a regulated process such as e-prescribing and chart signing.

CMS
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Common Control
An entity has the power, directly or indirectly, significantly to influence or direct the actions or policies of another entity.

Common Ownership
An entity or entities possess an ownership or equity interest of 5 percent or more in another entity.

Compliance Date
The date by which a covered entity must comply with a standard, implementation specification, requirement, or modification adopted under this subchapter.

Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE)
A computer application that allows a physician's orders for diagnostic and treatment services (such as medications, laboratory, and other tests) to be entered electronically instead of being recorded on order sheets or prescription pads. The computer compares the order against standards for dosing, checks for allergies or interactions with other medications, and warns the physician about potential problems.

Confidentiality
Data or information is not made available or disclosed to unauthorized persons or processes.

Controlled Clinical Vocabulary
A system of standardizing the terms used in describing client-centered health and health service-related concepts.

Conversion Services
Consulting services offered by the vendor. These services will take your original data, either in paper or electronic form, and transfer the data into the EHR system database.

Covered Entity
A health plan, a health care clearinghouse or a health care provider who transmits any health information in electronic form in connection with a transaction.

Covered Functions
Functions of a covered entity the performance of which makes the entity a health plan, health care provider, or health care clearinghouse.

CPOE (Computerized Provider Order Entry)
A computer application that allows a physician's orders for diagnostic and treatment services (such as medications, laboratory, and other tests) to be entered electronically instead of being recorded on order sheets or prescription pads. The computer compares the order against standards for dosing, checks for allergies or interactions with other medications, and warns the physician about potential problems.

Data Aggregation
Combining protected health information to permit data analyses that relate to the health care operations of the respective covered entities.

Data Center
The physical space and hardware used by the HIE to house its operations if these assets are kept within the HIE.

Data Integrity
The accuracy and completeness of data, to be maintained by appropriate security measures and controls. Preservation of the original quality and accuracy of data, in written or in electronic form.

Data Recovery Services
A mechanism and process to safely store duplicate databases and recreate the data should a disaster occur.

Decision Support
Computerized functions that assist users in making decisions in their job functions. In the practice of medicine, these functions include providing electronic access to medical literature, alerting the user to potential adverse drug interactions, and suggesting alternative treatment plans for a certain diagnosis.

Decryption
The technique of using mathematical procedures to "unscramble" data so that an unintelligible (encrypted) message becomes intelligible.

Demographics
Information about name, address, age, gender, and role used to link patient records from multiple sources in the absence of a unique patient identifier.

DICOM (Digital Imaging Communications in Medicine)
A standard, which defines protocols for the exchange of medical images and associated information (such as patient identification details and technique information) between instruments, information systems, and health care providers. It establishes a common language that enables medical images produced on one system to be processed and displayed on another.

Digital Signature
A string of binary digits, which is computed using an encryption algorithm enabling signatory authentication, confirmation of data integrity, and non-repudiation of messages.

Direct Treatment Relationship
A treatment relationship between an individual and a health care provider that is not an indirect treatment relationship.

Disclosure
The release, transfer, provision of access to, or divulging in any other manner of information outside the entity holding the information.

Doctor Matching
The process of cross-linking the multiple provider identifiers in a community from a variety of provider identifier sources and creating a master doctor identifier with a key for cross-referencing the various community identifiers.

Document Review, Edit, Sign
A software process that allows for the secure review, editing, and signature through electronic, distributed technology of electronic health record components, such as operative reports, discharge summaries, and consultations.

DURSA
Data Use Reciprocal Support Agreement

ED
Emergency Department

eHI- eHealth Initiative
(See ehealthinitiative.org)

EHR (Electronic Health Record)
An electronic record of health-related information on an individual that conforms to nationally recognized interoperability standards and that can be created, managed, and consulted by authorized clinicians and staff across more than one health care organization.

eLaboratory
The electronic delivery of laboratory results to practices so that such data may be integrated into electronic patient records in a full EHR system, or used by a dedicated application to view structured, context-rich, and/or longitudinal laboratory results on a patient. eLaboratory includes closing the orders loop, documenting the review of results by clinicians, and documenting that the results have been communicated to the patient. The full benefits of eLaboratory are not achieved until the results are used as input into clinical decision support systems (CDSS).

Electronic Billing (Claims, Eligibility, Remittance)
The ability to contact the payer before the patient is seen and get a response that indicates whether or not the services to be rendered will be covered by the payer.

Electronic Billing Support
The ability to contact the payer before the patient is seen and get a response that indicates whether or not the services to be rendered will be covered by the payer.

Electronic Imaging Results Delivery
The ability to accept messages from radiology sources and integrate the data for presentation to a clinician.

Electronic Prescribing (Pharmacy Communication)
Provides features to enable secure bidirectional communication of information electronically between practitioners and pharmacies or between practitioner and intended recipient of pharmacy orders.

Electronic Quality Data Submission (Performance and Accountability Measures)
Support of the capture and reporting of quality, performance, and accountability measures to which providers/facilities/delivery.

Electronic Referral Management
The ability to generate and/or receive summaries of relevant clinical information on a patient that are typically transferred between healthcare providers when a patient is referred to a specialist or admitted or discharged from a hospital.

Electronic Referrals and Authorizations
The ability to generate and/or receive summaries of relevant clinical information on a patient that are typically transferred between healthcare providers when a patient is referred to a specialist or admitted or discharged from a hospital.

Electronic Signature
A digital signature, which serves as a unique identifier for an individual.

ELINCS
HER Lab Interoperability and Connectivity Standard

EMR (Electronic Medical Record)
An electronic record of health-related information on an individual that can be created, gathered, managed, and consulted by authorized clinicians and staff within one health care organization.

Encryption
The process of enciphering or encoding a message so as to render it unintelligible without a key to decrypt (unscramble) the message.

ePHR - electronic Personal Health Record
A universally accessible, layperson comprehensible, lifelong tool for managing relevant health information, promoting health maintenance and assisting with chronic disease management via an interactive, common data set of electronic health information and e-health tools. The ePHR is owned, managed, and shared by the individual or his or her legal proxy(s) and must be secure to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the health information it contains. It is not a legal record unless so defined and is subject to various legal limitations.

E-Prescribing
Provides features to enable secure bidirectional communication of information electronically between practitioners and pharmacies or between practitioner and intended recipient of pharmacy orders.

Facility
The physical premises and the interior and exterior of a building(s).

FHIN
Florida Health Information Network

FQHC
Federally Qualified Health Center

GOHIT
Greater Ocala Health Information Trust, Inc.

Group Health Plan (also see definition of health plan)
An employee welfare benefit plan, including insured and self-insured plans, to the extent that the plan provides medical care, including items and services paid for as medical care, to employees or their dependents directly or through insurance, reimbursement, or otherwise, that has 50 or more participants or is administered by an entity other than the employer that established and maintains the plan.

HCFA
Health Care Financing Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services. Note: HCFA has been renamed and is now called the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

HHS
The Federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Healthcare
A provider of services, a provider of medical or health services and any other person or organization who furnishes, bills, or is paid for health care in the normal course of business.

Health Information
Any information, whether oral or recorded in any form or medium, that is created or received by a health care provider, health plan, public health authority, employer, life insurer, school or university, or health care clearinghouse; and relates to the past, present, or future physical or mental health or condition of an individual; the provision of health care to an individual; or the past, present, or future payment for the provision of health care to an individual.

HIE (Health Information Exchange)
The mobilization of healthcare information electronically across organizations within a region or community. HIE provides the capability to electronically move clinical information between disparate healthcare information systems while maintaining the meaning of the information being exchanged. The goal of HIE is to facilitate access to and retrieval of clinical data to provide safer, more timely, efficient, effective, equitable, patient-centered care. Formal organizations are now emerging to provide both form and function for health information exchange efforts. These organizations (often called Regional Health Information Organizations, or RHIOs) are ordinarily geographically-defined entities which develop and manage a set of contractual conventions and terms, arrange for the means of electronic exchange of information, and develop and maintain HIE standards. Although HIE initiatives differ in many ways, survey results and eHI experiences with states, regions and communities indicate that those who are experiencing the most success share the following characteristics. They are:

Governed by a diverse and broad set of community stakeholders; Develop and assure adherence to a common set of principles and standards for the technical and policy aspects of information sharing, addressing the needs of every stakeholder; Develop and implement a technical infrastructure based on national standards to facilitate interoperability; Develop and maintain a model for sustainability that aligns the costs with the benefits related to HIE; and Use metrics to measure performance from the perspective of: patient care, public health, provider value, and economic value.

HIECC
Health Information Exchange Coordinating Committee (created by AHCA)

Health Insurance Issuer
An insurance company, insurance service, or insurance organization (including an HMO) that is licensed to engage in the business of insurance in a State and is subject to State law that regulates insurance. Such term does not include a group health plan.

Healthcare Interoperability
Assures the clear and reliable communication of meaning by providing the correct context and exact meaning of the shared information as approved by designated communities of practice. This adds value by allowing the information to be accurately linked to related information, further developed and applied by computer systems and by care providers for the real-time delivery of optimal patient care.

Health Level Seven (HL7)
An ANSI approved American National Standard for electronic data exchange in health care. It enables disparate computer applications to exchange key sets of clinical and administrative information.

Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)
A federally qualified HMO, an organization recognized as an HMO under State law, or a similar organization regulated for solvency under State law in the same manner and to the same extent as such an HMO.

Health Oversight Agency
An agency or authority of the United States, a State, a territory, a political subdivision of a State or territory, or an Indian tribe, or a person or entity acting under a grant of authority from or contract with such public agency, including the employees or agents of such public agency or its contractors or persons or entities to whom it has granted authority, that is authorized by law to oversee the health care system (whether public or private) or government programs in which health information is necessary to determine eligibility or compliance, or to enforce civil rights laws for which health information is relevant.

Health Plan
An individual or group plan that provides, or pays the cost of, medical care.

HIPAA-
Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act

HITSP
Health Information Technology Standards Panel

HL7- (Health Level Seven)
An ANSI approved American National Standard for electronic data exchange in health care. It enables disparate computer applications to exchange key sets of clinical and administrative information.

HMO (Health Maintenance Organization)
A federally qualified HMO, an organization recognized as an HMO under State law, or a similar organization regulated for solvency under State law in the same manner and to the same extent as such an HMO.

Implementation Services
Consulting services offered by the vendor. These services will provide planning and actual implementation of an EHR system. It is important when comparing quoted implementation costs that physicians understand which detailed cost line items a particular vendor will be supplying. Also, make sure and take a look at their project plans.

Implementation Specification
Specific requirements or instructions for implementing a standard.

Indirect Treatment Relationship
A relationship between an individual and a health care provider in which the health care provider delivers health care to the individual based on the orders of another health care provider; and the health care provider typically provides services or products, or reports the diagnosis or results associated with the health care, directly to another health care provider, who provides the services or products or reports to the individual.

Individual
The person who is the subject of protected health information.

Individually Identifiable Health Information (IIHI)
Information that is a subset of health information, including demographic information collected from an individual, and is created or received by a health care provider, health plan, employer, or health care clearinghouse; and relates to the past, present, or future physical or mental health or condition of an individual; the provision of health care to an individual; or the past, present, or future payment for the provision of health care to an individual; and that identifies the individual; or with respect to which there is a reasonable basis to believe the information can be used to identify the individual.

Informatics
The application of computer science and information science to the management and processing of data, information, and knowledge.

Information System
An interconnected set of information resources under the same direct management control that shares common functionality. A system normally includes hardware, software, information, data, applications, communications, and people.

Integrity
Data or information have not been altered or destroyed in an unauthorized manner.

Interface
Shared boundary between two functional units defined by various characteristics pertaining to the functions, physical interconnections, signal changes, and other characteristics as appropriate.

Interface to ADT System
The interface between an HIE and the systems that are sources for admission, discharge and transfer (ADT) of patients in the care delivery setting and that are resident within care delivery institution.

Interface to ASP EHR System
The interface between an HIE and Electronic Health Records (EHRs) that are maintained on ASP platforms (i.e. NexGen, AllScripts).

Interface to Claims System
The interface between an HIE and the systems that are sources for or routing pathways for claims data that are resident within health plans and claims clearinghouses.

Interface to EKG System
The interface between an HIE and the systems that are sources for EKG results that are resident within dispensing physician offices and hospitals.

Interface to Eligibility System
The interface between an HIE and the source data of which people have eligibility for which type of benefits that are resident within health plans and are not infrequently web-enabled.

Interface to Formulary System
The interface between an HIE and the systems that are sources for formulary status of specific drugs for specific health benefit designs and that are resident within pharmacy benefit management companies and hospitals.

Interface to Laboratory System
The interface between an HIE and systems that are sources of laboratory data.

Interface to Pharmacy System
The interface between an HIE and the systems that are sources for prescription data or that are resident within dispensing pharmacies, pharmacy benefit management companies and hospitals.

Interface to Practice Management System
The interface between an HIE and the systems that are sources for the financial management systems of physician practices.

Interface to Provider List System
The interface between an HIE and the systems that track the multiple providers and their identifying data that are resident within health plans, dispensing pharmacies, pharmacy benefit management companies laboratories, physician practices, and hospitals.

Interface to Provider Office EHR System
The interface between an HIE and EHRs that are maintained in practice-specific systems (e.g. EPIC).

Interface to Radiology System
The interface between an HIE and systems that are sources for radiological data.

Interface to Transcribed Reports System
The interface between an HIE and the systems that are sources for transcribed reports. Typically these systems are based at a transcription service or at a hospital and contain admission and discharge notes and consultations, operative reports, and pathology and radiology results.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
It is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies from some 130 countries, one from each country. ISO's work results in international agreements, which are published as International Standards.

Interoperability
The ability of two or more systems or components to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged accurately, securely, and verifiably, when and where needed.

ISO (The International Organization for Standardization
It is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies from some 130 countries, one from each country. ISO's work results in international agreements, which are published as International Standards.

JHIN
JaxCare Health Information Network

Key Certificate
A data record that authenticates the owner of a public key for an asymmetric algorithm. It is issued by a certification authority and is protected by a digital signature allowing the certificate to be verified widely. The certificate may also contain other fields beside the value to the key and the name of the owner, for example an expiration date.

Keys
A sequence of symbols that controls the operations of encryption and decryption.

LOINC (Logical Observation Identifiers, Names, and Codes)
The LOINC databases provide sets of universal names and ID codes for identifying laboratory and clinical test results. The purpose is to facilitate the exchange and pooling of results, such as blood hemoglobin, serum potassium, or vital signs, for clinical care, outcomes management, and research.

Malicious Software
Software, for example a virus, designed to damage or disrupt a system.

Medication Matching
The process of cross-linking the multiple possible medication identifiers naming conventions in a community from a variety of systems housing medication information and creating a master medication identifier with a key for cross-referencing the various community identifiers. For example there are hundreds of NDC codes for identical drugs as well as HCPCS codes that identify the same drug as NDC codes.

Medication Reconciliation
Alerts providers in real-time to potential administration errors such as wrong patient, wrong drug, wrong dose, wrong route and wrong time in support of medication administration or pharmacy dispense/supply management and workflow.

Message Integrity
Protecting a message against its unauthorized modification, often by the originator of the message generating a digital signature.

Messaging to Pharmacies
The process of communicating electronically with pharmacies. This typically includes the cost of communication lines and processes between the HIE and pharmacies. This is necessary to support the e-prescribing function when that function includes the process of electronically sending a digital prescription to the pharmacy.

Messaging to Providers
The process of communicating electronically with providers. This typically includes the cost of communication lines and processes between the HIE and provider terminals.

Modify or Modification
A change adopted by the Secretary, through regulation, to a standard or an implementation specification.

NAHIT
National Alliance for Health Information Technology

NHIN (National Health Information Network)
An interoperable, standards-based network across the nation for the secure exchange of heath care information.

NEFHIC
Northeast Florida Health Information Consortium

NEFRHO
Northeast Florida Regional Health Organization

Network
A set of connected elements. For computers, any collection of computers connected together so that they are able to communicate, permitting the sharing of data or programs.

Network Connectivity
The process used for maintaining connection for communication between the HIE and a data source (laboratory, radiology practice, physician practice, or hospital) and data user (physician practice or hospital).

NWFRHIO
Northwest Florida RHIO

ONC
Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

Order Entry
The process of communicating health care provider orders through electronic, computerized processes.

OSI (Open Systems Interconnection)
An international standard for networking adopted by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization). This 7-layer model offers the widest range of capabilities for networking.

Outbreak Surveillance
Support clinical health state monitoring of aggregate patient data for use in identifying health risks from the environment and/or population.

Parallel Pathways for Quality Healthcare
eHI has developed a set of principles and framework for alignment of incentives with both quality and efficiency goals as well as HIT capabilities within the physician practice and health information exchange capabilities across markets.

Participant Roles
Examples of roles that may be recognized by the health system that participate in events affecting the health of people: provider, governor, manager, recipient, researcher, educator, worker and family member. Roles may be used to authorize an individual's access to information system functionality.

Password
Confidential authentication information composed of a string of characters.

Patient Matching
The process of cross-linking the multiple patient identifiers in a community from a variety of patient identifier sources and creating a master patient identifier with a key for cross-referencing the various community identifiers. This is also referred to as a record locator service.

P4P - Pay-for-Performance/Quality Data Reporting
Supports the capture and reporting of quality, performance, and accountability measures to which providers/ facilities/ delivery systems/communities are held accountable including measures related to process, outcomes, and/or costs of care, may be used in 'pay for performance' monitoring and adherence to best practice guidelines.

Payor
In healthcare, the entity responsible for making the payment to the healthcare provider for services rendered to a patient (insurance plan, Medicaid, Medicare, etc.).

PBCCHA
Palm Beach County Community Health Alliance

PHR - (Personal Health Record)
An electronic record of health-related information on an individual that conforms to nationally recognized interoperability standards and that can be drawn from multiple sources while being managed, shared, and controlled by the individual.

Pharmacovigilance
The science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects or any other drug-related problem. The science and activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding and prevention of adverse effects or any other drug-related problem.

Physical Safeguards
Physical measures, policies, and procedures to protect a covered entity’s electronic information systems and related buildings and equipment, from natural and environmental hazards, and unauthorized intrusion.

Privacy
Right of an individual to control the circulation of information about him-/herself within social relationships; freedom from unreasonable interference in an individual's private life; an individual's right to protection of data regarding him/her against misuse or unjustified publication.

Private Key
In asymmetric cryptography, the key, which is held only by the user for signing and decrypting, messages.

Protected Health Information
Individually identifiable health information.

Provider
In healthcare, one who directly or indirectly administers interventions that are designed to improve the physical or emotional status of patients.

Psychotherapy Notes
Notes recorded (in any medium) by a health care provider who is a mental health professional documenting or analyzing the contents of conversation during a private counseling session or a group, joint, or family counseling session and that are separated from the rest of the individual’s medical record. Psychotherapy notes excludes medication prescription and monitoring, counseling session start and stop times, the modalities and frequencies of treatment furnished, results of clinical tests, and any summary of the following items: diagnosis, functional status, the treatment plan, symptoms, prognosis, and progress to date.

Public Health Authority
An agency or authority of the United States, a State, a territory, a political subdivision of a State or territory, or an Indian tribe, or a person or entity acting under a grant of authority from or contract with such public agency, including the employees or agents of such public agency or its contractors or persons or entities to whom it has granted authority, that is responsible for public health matters as part of its official mandate.

Public Health Outbreak Surveillance
Supports clinical health state monitoring of aggregate patient data for use in identifying health risks from the environment and/or population.

Public Health Processor
A software product that processes extracted data from health care provider systems for the purpose of tracking, trending, and reporting for public health reasons.

Public Key
In asymmetric cryptography, the key that is published by the user to encrypt messages and so that others may verify his/her signature.

Public Key Certificate
A data record that authenticates the owner of a public key for an asymmetrical key system. It is issued by a CA and is protected by a digital signature, allowing the certificate to be verified widely.

PKI - (Public Key Infrastructure)
A conceptual framework that enables the encryption, decryption and electronic "signing" of data transmissions in a secure fashion within an open network environment.

Recommend Treatment and Monitoring
The basis of cost, local formularies or therapeutic guidelines and protocols.

Registration Authority
An entity (group or agency) that has been delegated by a CA to perform a specific set of ‘trusted authority’ functions within PKI. Relates to the privacy of individually identifiable h