Medical terminology is evolving rapidly to meet the needs of digital health records and data sharing. Where Hippocrates and Galen would be unfamiliar with today's medical environment, the core Greek and Latin roots of many terms remain the same. However, new technology has introduced numerous acronyms, slang terms, and a proliferation of over 100,000 medical terms in use. Efforts are underway to standardize terminology through systems like SNOMED CT and Kaiser's CMT to facilitate electronic health information exchange and ensure all stakeholders speak a common language. As data analytics become increasingly important, a consistent, usable medical vocabulary is essential.

1. Medical Terminology in
the Digital age
Pamela Marasco MEd., CPC

2. If Hippocrates and Galen found themselves in the doctor’s lounge of any
medical center today they would most certainly feel as if they were on
another planet.

3. Essential Greek and Latin Etymology
• The written and spoken language of healthcare would have some
elements (word roots, suffixes and prefixes) they would likely
understand
• As the essential Greek and Latin origins and meanings of most
medical terms remain the same
• But there would be a whole new vocabulary filled with acronyms,
colloquial terms and medical jargon from a variety of sources

4. Lost in Translation
• Over the last several years there has been a gradual evolution in
the circumstances, development and protocol regarding the use
(and misuse) of medical terms in every specialty from pediatrics
to podiatry
• Patients began to demand a user friendly vocabulary that wasn’t
lost in translation
• Students felt that rather than learning “Medical Terminology: The
Living Language (the title of a popular medical terminology
textbook) they were translating Caesar’s Gallic Wars, studying a
dead language from ancient texts

5. Popular Culture and Medical Terminology
• The gap was often filled by a set of medical terms base on popular
culture more entertaining than accurate
• Medical jargon and slang began creeping into the language of
medicine trivializing critically important concepts
• Terms like crispy critter (burn victim), deep fry (radiation therapy)
and acronyms like FLK (funny looking kid) trivialized the critically
important concept that medical terms were meant to be a
standardized form of communication among health care
professionals rather than street talk

6. Tower of Babel
A working vocabulary for health care professionals
meant to avoid misunderstanding and minimize
confusion had become the medical version of the
tower of Babel with more than 100,000 plus medical
terms currently in use with multiple meanings
Tower of Babel Syndrome

7. Little Chance of Slowing Down
• New techniques, procedures, research and cultural trends have
created an exponential rate of growth in the field of medical
terminology that shows little chance of slowing down

8. We All Need to Speak the Same Language
• With current changes in health care management and data sharing
of medical information, physicians and healthcare providers as
well as students, researchers, health care administrators, medical
billers and coders and government agencies all need to be
speaking the same language

9. Driven By Technology
• Medical terminology is undergoing a transformation to meet the
needs of EHR (electronic health records), data mining, quality
care improvement and meaningful use
• The jargon and acronyms alone used by the managed care industry
requires its own playbook and a recent Google search of medical
terminology and the government brought up 3,090,000 results

10. Common Digital Language
• Teachers, trainers and working professionals all realize the
importance of re-standardizing our medical vocabulary
• To develop a common digital language that all stakeholders
(healthcare providers, administrators, government agencies,
computer programmers and informaticists) understand
• Classical medical terminology translated into a common digital
format

11. Oceans of Data
• Various permutations of standardized medical
terminology have already begun. These oceans of
data were primarily designed either for medical
billing and coding or to facilitate EHR (electronic
health records) and computer cross mapping
• Their nomenclature remains scattered and despite
their best efforts to address errors and
inconsistencies, many errors and inconsistencies do
exist

12. Current Languages in Use Include the Following Vocabularies
• National Institute of Health UMLS, or Unified Medical
Language System (UMLS)
• A set of files and software that brings together various
health and biomedical vocabularies and standards to
enable interoperability between computer systems
Unified Medical Language System

13. Current Languages in Use Include the Following Vocabularies
• (SNOMED CT) Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine-Clinical Terms
• Described as the most comprehensive, multilingual clinical healthcare
terminology in the world.
• Developed in the US by the College of American Pathologists and the
National Health Service in the UK. Its design was based on identified
user requirements, practical experience and scientific principles based
on peer reviewed publications
• Maintained and distributed by the International Health Terminology
Standards Development Organization (IHTSDO), a not-for-profit
association which is owned and governed by its national members
• SNOMED currently contains more than 311,000 active concepts
SNOMED CT

14. Current Languages in Use Include the Following Vocabularies
• Kaiser Permanente's Convergent Medical Terminology (CMT)
• Allows clinicians to use familiar language to achieve standard electronic
health information exchange
• According to Phil Fasano, Chief Information Officer at Kaiser
Permanente, CMT is “designed to be seamless so clinicians see the
familiar clinical language on their monitors while other users can see a
simpler, translated version”
• In September 2009 Kaiser Permanente donated its CMT to the
International Healthcare Terminology Standards Development
Organization (IHTSDO) for U.S. distribution through the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS) to support data exchange between
providers
Kaiser Permanente CMT

15. Provider Friendly Terminology (PFT)
• All represent current efforts to codify the language of healthcare
with provider friendly terminology (PFT)
• Look to avoid multiple terms with the same meaning and
eliminate redundancy

16. Havoc in Cyberland
• For example
• Reporting renal failure syndrome as RF, kidney failure, failure of
the kidneys
• Reporting an abnormal computed tomography result as abnormal
CAT scan, abnormal CT, computerized axial tomography result
abnormal, CT scan result abnormal
• Can create havoc in cyber land with multiple terms with the same
meaning and unnecessary redundancy

17. I Don’t Know What My Doctor is Talking About
• In addition a crosswalk vocabulary
will bridge the gap between
healthcare providers and patients
who often complain “I know what
my Doctor is talking about”

18. Why Is This Important?
• Digital data bases encourage the use of standardized medical
terms with accurate, relevant data that can be confidently used
and shared by professionals to ensure quality care and understood
by patients to create a well-informed healthcare consumer
• Statistics can more easily be gathered and used to make decisions
on future health care delivery
• Quality of care assessment, patient safety evaluation, public
health surveillance and decision support algorithm development
depend on reliable data

19. Usable Medical Vocabulary
• A sustainable data exchange depends on a usable medical vocabulary
• Those of us who are involved in the study and interpretation of medical
data see the need for the classical language of medical terminology
paired with appropriate colloquial terms to create a language adaptable
to medical terminology in the digital age
• Bioinformatics seeks to improve the gathering, storing, organizing and
sharing of digital biological and health data
• Analyzing information can lead to better problem solving, decision
making and more informed choices about our country’s health care but
only if we all speak the same language

20. Examples of Medical Terms Used in the Digital Age
•
EHR - electronic health records also known as EMR (electronic medical records).
•
BMI Charts (Body Mass Index Charts) - EMR systems can automatically calculate BMI from inputted height and weight information.
BMI is used by an EMR system to generate prompts to clinicians regarding preventive health and disease management protocols.
•
Electronic Protected Health Information (ePHI) - protected health information (PHI) which is stored, accessed, transmitted or
received electronically.
•
E Prescribing (also called electronic prescribing, electronic prescription, e-prescribing or eRX) - the electronic transmission of
prescription information to and from the prescriber's computer and a pharmacy computer. It replaces a paper prescription that the
patient would otherwise carry or fax to the pharmacy.
•
Hospitalist - a physician who practices most of his or her time in hospitals and specializes in medical care to hospitalized patients.
Hospital-based providers.
•
Health informatics (also called healthcare informatics, biohealth informatics, medical informatics, biomedical informatics) - deals
with the resources, devices and methods required to optimize the acquisition, storage, retrieval and use of information in health
and biomedicine.
•
HITECH - the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) -legislation created to stimulate the
adoption of electronic health records (EHR) and supporting technology in the United States. President Obama signed HITECH into law
on February 17, 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).
•
Interoperability - enables data and information generated by one system to be accessed and (re-)used in a meaningful way by
another system