Reference
Glossary
Concise definitions for the clinical, technical, and operational terms that come up around the hospital room. Written to be understood without a medical or engineering degree.
A
- ADT
- Admission, Discharge, Transfer — the HL7 v2 event family that drives bed status across a hospital.
- AIIR
- Airborne Infection Isolation Room — a negative-pressure inpatient room engineered to contain airborne pathogens.
- Air Changes per Hour
- The number of times per hour the total volume of air in a room is replaced. AIIRs require a minimum of 12.
- Alarm Fatigue
- The desensitization that occurs when clinicians are exposed to high volumes of non-actionable alarms.
- Ambient Documentation
- AI systems that generate a clinical note from the recorded patient-clinician conversation.
- ASHRAE 170
- The US standard governing ventilation rates, pressure relationships, and filtration in healthcare facilities.
B
- Bed Exit Alarm
- A load-cell-based alert that fires when a patient's weight shifts toward the edge of the bed.
C
- CDS Hooks
- A specification for firing webhooks from the EHR at defined workflow points to surface decision-support cards.
- Central Monitoring
- A remote desk where technicians watch cardiac rhythms and other vitals across many patients.
- Charting
- The clinical documentation process — recording assessments, vitals, medications, and events in the EHR.
D
- DISS
- Diameter Index Safety System — the non-interchangeable threaded fittings for medical gas outlets.
E
- EHR
- Electronic Health Record. The primary system of record for patient information.
F
- FGI Guidelines
- The Facility Guidelines Institute standard adopted by most US states as the reference for hospital design and construction.
- FHIR
- Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources — a modern REST/JSON standard for healthcare data exchange.
H
- HAI
- Healthcare-Associated Infection — an infection acquired during the delivery of medical care.
- HCAHPS
- A standardized US survey measuring patient perceptions of hospital care.
- HEPA
- High-Efficiency Particulate Air filter, used in isolation-room exhaust.
- HIPAA
- US federal law governing the privacy and security of protected health information.
- HL7 v2
- A legacy but still dominant clinical messaging standard using pipe-and-hat delimiters.
M
- MDI
- Medical Device Integration — the practice of getting device data into clinical systems reliably.
- MDR
- EU Medical Device Regulation (2017/745) — the CE-mark framework for medical devices in the EU.
- MDS2
- Manufacturer Disclosure Statement for Medical Device Security — the standard security questionnaire for procurement.
- MEWS
- Modified Early Warning Score — a five-parameter deterioration score commonly used on general wards.
- MLLP
- Minimal Lower Layer Protocol — the TCP framing used to carry HL7 v2 messages between systems.
N
- NEWS2
- UK Royal College of Physicians early-warning score based on six physiological parameters.
- NFPA 99
- The Health Care Facilities Code covering medical gases, electrical safety, and emergency systems.
P
- PACU
- Post-Anesthesia Care Unit — the immediate-recovery space after surgery.
- PHI
- Protected Health Information, as defined by HIPAA.
R
- RTLS
- Real-Time Location System — sensors and tags that track equipment, staff, or patients within a facility.
S
- Same-Handed Room
- A design pattern in which every room on a unit shares the same orientation, reducing clinician cognitive load.
- SBAR
- Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation — the standard clinical handoff framework.
- SBOM
- Software Bill of Materials — the machine-readable inventory of components in a software product, required in FDA cyber-device submissions.
- Sentinel Event
- A Joint Commission-defined patient safety event resulting in death, permanent harm, or severe temporary harm.
- SMART on FHIR
- An OAuth 2.0 profile that allows third-party apps to launch inside an EHR with a scoped patient context.
- SPHM
- Safe Patient Handling and Mobility — the ANA standards framework for mechanically assisted patient movement.
- SpO2
- Peripheral capillary oxygen saturation — the standard non-invasive measure of blood oxygen.
- Step-Down Unit
- An acuity level between the ICU and the general ward, with continuous monitoring but lower staffing.
T
- Telemetry
- Continuous cardiac monitoring transmitted from a wearable to a central station.
U
- USCDI
- United States Core Data for Interoperability — the ONC-defined minimum data set for FHIR APIs.
- USCDI+
- Domain-specific extensions to USCDI, published by ONC for use cases like public health and quality.
V
- Virtual Nursing
- A remote nurse assisting bedside teams over a fixed room-based video endpoint.
W
- WAGD
- Waste Anesthetic Gas Disposal — the piped scavenging system for anesthetic exhaust in ORs and procedure rooms.
- Waveform
- The continuous graph of a physiological signal (e.g. ECG, arterial pressure) as opposed to a periodic number.
Z
- Zone Valve
- The wall-mounted shutoff valve that isolates a medical-gas zone for maintenance or emergency response.