Redwood MedNet :: Glossary D

Dashboard - Management dashboards provide access to summary data on primary process details in a business. Typically a dashboard also enables drill down access to the details that are the basis for the summary view. See Business Intelligence

Data Center - A facility hosting network computer systems and other telecommunications components. Sometimes called a server farm, data centers usually include backup power systems, redundant communication circuits, environmental controls and perimeter security services. See Cloud Computing, NOC

Data Element - The smallest named unit of information in a transaction under HIPAA (45 CFR § 162.103). Data elements are simple or compound. Each data element has a name, description, type, minimum, and maximum length. See HIPAA

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Data Repository - A formally structured database environment, generally with strong field level validation and terminology standards. A repository is as formal as a data warehouse, generally lacks the onboard querying capabilities of a data warehouse, and can be more agile and adaptive to distributed data sources. See Business Intelligence, CDR, Data Warehouse, Database, i2b2

Data Use Agreement - The license agreement between a participant and a covered entity that governs the use of Protected Health Information (PHI) that is part of a Limited Data Set. See Covered Entity, Limited Data Set, Protected Health Information

Data Validation - A process by which incoming data must conform to a specific standard (e.g., must be a date, or must be a number, etc.). Nonconformant data is not allowed in fields governed by strict data validation.

Data Warehouse - A purpose-built data repository, generally derived from production databases. The extra steps necessary to normalize large data sets for use as a data warehouse are intended to optimze rapid data analysis. See Business Intelligence, CDR, Data Repository, Database

Database - Stored data organized by a schema into individual fields linked together into records. See Business Intelligence, CDR, Data Repository, Data Warehouse, Schema

DBMS - Data Base Management System

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DEA - The Drug Enforcement Administration is the division of the United States Department of Justice responsible for enforcing federal controlled substances laws and regulations. Their jurisdiction intersects with medicine in electronic prescribing services. See e-Prescribing

Decedent - A deceased individual, who still retains the right to the privacy of their protected health information (PHI) under HIPAA. Covered entities may disclose PHI to funeral directors as needed, and to coroners or medical examiners to identify a deceased person, to determine the cause of death, and to perform other functions as authorized by law. See HIPAA, PHI

Decision Support - Computer tools or applications to augment clinical decision making by providing evidence-based knowledge in the context of patient specific data. Sometimes called Decision Support System (DSS) or Clinical Decision Support (CDS). See Expert System, Guideline, Inference Engine, Protocol

Decryption - Decoding a message that has been encoded. See Encryption, PKI

DEEDS - Data Elements for Emergency Department Systems is an effort to develop uniform specifications for data entered in emergency department (ED) patient records. Current emergency care data exchange specifications and external reporting requirements and recommendations are fragmented and often spontaneously evolve in an ad-hoc fashion with different organizations developing incompatible data standards. The HL7 Emergency Care Work Group is currently working to move DEEDS through the balloting process. See CDC, ED, HL7

De-identified Data - Data that is intended to neither identify nor to provide a reasonable basis to re-identify the source individual. However, recent research has shown that some "de-identified" data sets can be re-identified due to the abundance of new social networking data on individuals. See Anonymize, Limited Data Set, Re-identified Data

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DHCS - The California Department of Health Care Services is the California agency that oversees Medi-Cal. The mission of DHCS is to protect and promote the health status of Californians through the financing and delivery of individual health care services. DHCS is an operating division of CHHS. See CHHS

DHIMS - Defense Health Information Management System. See CHCS, DoD

Dialup - Sometimes spelled dial-up, a computer to computer connection which requires only modems and telephone lines. Useful in rural and frontier regions whick lack broadband access to the Internet. Broadband is too slow for video, VOIP or other modern technologies. See Analog, Broadband, POTS, VOIP

DICOM - Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine.

Digital - A digital signal is discrete in time and amplitude, as opposed to an analog signal, which is continuous. See Analog, DSL

Digital Certificate - A digital document issued by a certificate authority (CA) that contains the certificate holder's name, public key and expiration date. Public key encryption methods require digital certificates. See Certificate Authority, Encryption, Public Key

Digital Divide - A common phrase indicating the gap between a group or community with access to digital technology (e.g., computers, video conferencing, etc.) and others with less access (or no access) to the technology.

Direct Project - The Direct Project, launched by ONC in 2010, develops specifications for a secure, scalable, standards-based way to establish universal health addressing and transport for participants (including providers, laboratories, hospitals, pharmacies and patients) to send encrypted health information directly to known, trusted recipients over the Internet. See ONC

DirectTrust - DirectTrust.org is being formed as a non-profit, competitively neutral, self-regulatory entity by and for the Direct community. It is intended that DirectTrust.org will carry out its mission in a manner entirely consistent with the governance rules and regulations for the Direct Project and the NwHIN promulgated by HHS, ONC, and the mandates of the HITECH Act. See Certificate Authority, Direct Project

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Disambiguate - To remove uncertainty from ambiguous data; specifically in health data to assert that two values are identical. For example, linking the health record of "Patient 1" at "Practice A" with the health record of "Patient 6" at "Practice B" because they are the same person "disambiguates" the patient identities. See Algorithm, MPI, Sensitivity, Specificity

Disclosure - The release, transfer or provision of access to protected health information (PHI). Disclosure applies to persons or organizations who receive PHI from covered entities or from the covered entity's Business Associate (BA)s. See Business Associate, Covered Entity and PHI

Disease Management - A coordinated and proactive approach to managing care and support for patients with chronic illness (e.g., diabetes, asthma, HIV/AIDS, etc.). See CDS

Disease Registry - A purpose built clinical data repository focused on patients with chronic illness (e.g., diabetes, asthma, cancer, etc.).

Distribute - The Distributed Surveillance Taskforce for Real-time Influenza Burden Tracking and Evaluation (Distribute) is a community-based public health information system and network of users organized and supported by the International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) to conduct electronic population-level emergency department (ED) syndromic surveillance for influenza-like illness (ILI). See Biosurveillance, ISDS, ILI, Syndrome

DMH - The California Department of Mental Health is entrusted with leadership of the California mental health system. DMH is an operating division of CHHS. See CHHS

DMHC - The California Department of Managed Health Care is the California agency that oversees health care for the 20 million people who belong to managed health care plans. DHMC is an operating division of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency.

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DMZ - In computer security the "demilitarized zone" or DMZ is a physical or logical subnetwork that contains and exposes an organization's external services to a larger untrusted network, usually the Internet. The purpose of a DMZ is to add an additional layer of security to an organization's perimeter so that an external attacker only has access to facilities or content in the DMZ, rather than to internal network services. See Router

DNS - The Domain Name System, defined in RFC 1034, is a hierarchical naming service that translates Internet domain names (host names that are meaningful to humans) into binary address strings associated with specific network address locations. See Internet, RFC

DoD - The United States Department of Defense is the Cabinet level agency, headquartered at the Pentagon in Virginia, that commands the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. See CHCS, DHIMS

DOQ-IT - The Doctors Office Quality Information Technology program was operated by CMS. DOQ-IT ended in April 2009. See CMS

DPEI - Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infections at the CDC. See Biosurveillance, CDC

DRM - Digital Rights Management, a generic term for access control technologies employed by copyright holders to limit the use of digital content. Some DRM technologies are controversial, and have led to sprawling legal and court battles over alleged anti-competitive practices by copyright holders. See cc, EFF, Free Software, Intellectual Property

DSL - Digital telephony technology initially developed as "Digital Subscriber Loop" was later marketed to consumers as "Digital Subscriber Line." By segregating digital signals into separate bands on a single circuit, DSL can provide both voice and data services on the same copper wire. See Broadband, Dialup, POTS, WiMAX

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DSMO - Designated Standards Maintenance Organizations are named by HHS to maintain code sets and transaction standards. See HL7, NCPDP

DSS See Decision Support

DURSA - The Data Use and Reciprocal Support Agreement is a production document for the NwHIN. The DURSA was developed by ONC. See NwHIN, NwHIN Exchange


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	Health Informatics Glossary A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Dashboard - Management dashboards provide access to summary data on primary process details in a business. Typically a dashboard also enables drill down access to the details that are the basis for the summary view. See Business Intelligence Data Center - A facility hosting network computer systems and other telecommunications components. Sometimes called a server farm, data centers usually include backup power systems, redundant communication circuits, environmental controls and perimeter security services. See Cloud Computing, NOC Data Element - The smallest named unit of information in a transaction under HIPAA (45 CFR § 162.103). Data elements are simple or compound. Each data element has a name, description, type, minimum, and maximum length. See HIPAA top Data Repository - A formally structured database environment, generally with strong field level validation and terminology standards. A repository is as formal as a data warehouse, generally lacks the onboard querying capabilities of a data warehouse, and can be more agile and adaptive to distributed data sources. See Business Intelligence, CDR, Data Warehouse, Database, i2b2 Data Use Agreement - The license agreement between a participant and a covered entity that governs the use of Protected Health Information (PHI) that is part of a Limited Data Set. See Covered Entity, Limited Data Set, Protected Health Information Data Validation - A process by which incoming data must conform to a specific standard (e.g., must be a date, or must be a number, etc.). Nonconformant data is not allowed in fields governed by strict data validation. Data Warehouse - A purpose-built data repository, generally derived from production databases. The extra steps necessary to normalize large data sets for use as a data warehouse are intended to optimze rapid data analysis. See Business Intelligence, CDR, Data Repository, Database Database - Stored data organized by a schema into individual fields linked together into records. See Business Intelligence, CDR, Data Repository, Data Warehouse, Schema DBMS - Data Base Management System top DEA - The Drug Enforcement Administration is the division of the United States Department of Justice responsible for enforcing federal controlled substances laws and regulations. Their jurisdiction intersects with medicine in electronic prescribing services. See e-Prescribing Decedent - A deceased individual, who still retains the right to the privacy of their protected health information (PHI) under HIPAA. Covered entities may disclose PHI to funeral directors as needed, and to coroners or medical examiners to identify a deceased person, to determine the cause of death, and to perform other functions as authorized by law. See HIPAA, PHI Decision Support - Computer tools or applications to augment clinical decision making by providing evidence-based knowledge in the context of patient specific data. Sometimes called Decision Support System (DSS) or Clinical Decision Support (CDS). See Expert System, Guideline, Inference Engine, Protocol Decryption - Decoding a message that has been encoded. See Encryption, PKI DEEDS - Data Elements for Emergency Department Systems is an effort to develop uniform specifications for data entered in emergency department (ED) patient records. Current emergency care data exchange specifications and external reporting requirements and recommendations are fragmented and often spontaneously evolve in an ad-hoc fashion with different organizations developing incompatible data standards. The HL7 Emergency Care Work Group is currently working to move DEEDS through the balloting process. See CDC, ED, HL7 De-identified Data - Data that is intended to neither identify nor to provide a reasonable basis to re-identify the source individual. However, recent research has shown that some "de-identified" data sets can be re-identified due to the abundance of new social networking data on individuals. See Anonymize, Limited Data Set, Re-identified Data top DHCS - The California Department of Health Care Services is the California agency that oversees Medi-Cal. The mission of DHCS is to protect and promote the health status of Californians through the financing and delivery of individual health care services. DHCS is an operating division of CHHS. See CHHS DHIMS - Defense Health Information Management System. See CHCS, DoD Dialup - Sometimes spelled dial-up, a computer to computer connection which requires only modems and telephone lines. Useful in rural and frontier regions whick lack broadband access to the Internet. Broadband is too slow for video, VOIP or other modern technologies. See Analog, Broadband, POTS, VOIP DICOM - Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine. Digital - A digital signal is discrete in time and amplitude, as opposed to an analog signal, which is continuous. See Analog, DSL Digital Certificate - A digital document issued by a certificate authority (CA) that contains the certificate holder's name, public key and expiration date. Public key encryption methods require digital certificates. See Certificate Authority, Encryption, Public Key Digital Divide - A common phrase indicating the gap between a group or community with access to digital technology (e.g., computers, video conferencing, etc.) and others with less access (or no access) to the technology. Direct Project - The Direct Project, launched by ONC in 2010, develops specifications for a secure, scalable, standards-based way to establish universal health addressing and transport for participants (including providers, laboratories, hospitals, pharmacies and patients) to send encrypted health information directly to known, trusted recipients over the Internet. See ONC DirectTrust - DirectTrust.org is being formed as a non-profit, competitively neutral, self-regulatory entity by and for the Direct community. It is intended that DirectTrust.org will carry out its mission in a manner entirely consistent with the governance rules and regulations for the Direct Project and the NwHIN promulgated by HHS, ONC, and the mandates of the HITECH Act. See Certificate Authority, Direct Project top Disambiguate - To remove uncertainty from ambiguous data; specifically in health data to assert that two values are identical. For example, linking the health record of "Patient 1" at "Practice A" with the health record of "Patient 6" at "Practice B" because they are the same person "disambiguates" the patient identities. See Algorithm, MPI, Sensitivity, Specificity Disclosure - The release, transfer or provision of access to protected health information (PHI). Disclosure applies to persons or organizations who receive PHI from covered entities or from the covered entity's Business Associate (BA)s. See Business Associate, Covered Entity and PHI Disease Management - A coordinated and proactive approach to managing care and support for patients with chronic illness (e.g., diabetes, asthma, HIV/AIDS, etc.). See CDS Disease Registry - A purpose built clinical data repository focused on patients with chronic illness (e.g., diabetes, asthma, cancer, etc.). Distribute - The Distributed Surveillance Taskforce for Real-time Influenza Burden Tracking and Evaluation (Distribute) is a community-based public health information system and network of users organized and supported by the International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) to conduct electronic population-level emergency department (ED) syndromic surveillance for influenza-like illness (ILI). See Biosurveillance, ISDS, ILI, Syndrome DMH - The California Department of Mental Health is entrusted with leadership of the California mental health system. DMH is an operating division of CHHS. See CHHS DMHC - The California Department of Managed Health Care is the California agency that oversees health care for the 20 million people who belong to managed health care plans. DHMC is an operating division of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency. top DMZ - In computer security the "demilitarized zone" or DMZ is a physical or logical subnetwork that contains and exposes an organization's external services to a larger untrusted network, usually the Internet. The purpose of a DMZ is to add an additional layer of security to an organization's perimeter so that an external attacker only has access to facilities or content in the DMZ, rather than to internal network services. See Router DNS - The Domain Name System, defined in RFC 1034, is a hierarchical naming service that translates Internet domain names (host names that are meaningful to humans) into binary address strings associated with specific network address locations. See Internet, RFC DoD - The United States Department of Defense is the Cabinet level agency, headquartered at the Pentagon in Virginia, that commands the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. See CHCS, DHIMS DOQ-IT - The Doctors Office Quality Information Technology program was operated by CMS. DOQ-IT ended in April 2009. See CMS DPEI - Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infections at the CDC. See Biosurveillance, CDC DRM - Digital Rights Management, a generic term for access control technologies employed by copyright holders to limit the use of digital content. Some DRM technologies are controversial, and have led to sprawling legal and court battles over alleged anti-competitive practices by copyright holders. See cc, EFF, Free Software, Intellectual Property DSL - Digital telephony technology initially developed as "Digital Subscriber Loop" was later marketed to consumers as "Digital Subscriber Line." By segregating digital signals into separate bands on a single circuit, DSL can provide both voice and data services on the same copper wire. See Broadband, Dialup, POTS, WiMAX top DSMO - Designated Standards Maintenance Organizations are named by HHS to maintain code sets and transaction standards. See HL7, NCPDP DSS See Decision Support DURSA - The Data Use and Reciprocal Support Agreement is a production document for the NwHIN. The DURSA was developed by ONC. See NwHIN, NwHIN Exchange

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Health Informatics Glossary