Glossary of Terms
Abstract - The act of recording historical data on a patient. End users can access abstraction tools to input information that was not generated electronically or interfaced onto the record
Access - Epic's term for patient access applications, including those that deal with scheduling, registration, and ADT
Activity - The activity master file (E2N) contains records that allow users to perform actions in Hyperspace. Anytime a user is in Hyperspace, they are working inside of an activity record
Addendum - An edit to an encounter after it has been closed/signed
Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) - An outpatient surgery center. They use either EpicCare Ambulatory or OpTime/Anesthesia tools to complete documentation, depending on the nature and types of surgeries being performed.
Ancillary Orders - An activity used to place and schedule orders for ancillary procedures, such as radiology exams.
Andromeda - A spiral galaxy approximately 780 kiloparsecs from Earth, and the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. Also, the name of the main building at Epic's Intergalactic Headquarters in Verona, WI.
Anesthesia - Epic's anesthesia application
ASAP - Epic's emergency department application
Batch - A background process that can be run on a schedule. Analysts set up batches in Epic to automate routine processes such as printing appointment reminder letters
Beacon - Epic's oncology application
Beaker - Epic's laboratory application
Best Practice Advisory (BPA) - Alerts triggered within Epic that warn or advise users to perform a particular action. BPAs could be used to notify clinicians that a patient is at risk of developing infection, and provide recommendations to take action
BLOB - A Binary Large OBject (BLOB) is a collection of binary data stored as a single entity in a database management system. In Epic, these are typically images, audio or other multimedia objects.
Block - A block is a hold on a schedule to reserve appointment time for a specific type of patient, for example, new patients
Break the Glass (BTG) - BTG is functionality in Epic that allows administrators to put guardrails around the types of patients that different types of end users are permitted to access. BTG could be used to prevent non-mental health clinicians from accessing mental health records in an enterprise system
Build - A term referring to an analysts' work in creating or modifying records in Epic. The "build" for a project typically involves multiple related master files
Business Intelligence - Business intelligence refers to the process of making sense of the data that a business generates. Healthcare organizations employ business intelligence developers to create reports within Epic and outside of Epic
Caboodle - Epic's enterprise data warehouse (EDW). Caboodle can store information generated both inside as well of outside of Epic
Caché - The database management system on which Epic is based. Developed by InterSystems. Claims to be the "world’s fastest object database." Used by VistaA in addition to Epic
Cadence - Epic's outpatient scheduling application
Call Management/CRM - Epic's call mangement and customer relationship management application
Care Everywhere - Epic's interoperability application
Charge Router - Epic's charge routing application
Encounter - A record of a contact with a patient. Encounters can be inpatient (admissions), outpatient (office visits), emergency (ED admission), and virtual (telephone or video chat), to name a few categories. Encounters are stored as contacts to the EPT master file.
Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) - An enterprise master patient index (EMPI) is a database used to store information about all of the patients registered by a healthcare organization. An accurate and de-duplicated EMPI is crucial to the success of any Epic implementation.
Epic - Epic Systems Corporation is a privately held software company based in Verona, WI. Develops and supports an electronic medical record application
EpicCare Ambulatory - Epic's outpatient clinical EMR application
EpicCare Inpatient - Epic's inpatient clinical EMR application
History - Information about the patient related to their past medical treatments and conditions. Includes medical history (diagnoses), surgical history (procedures), and family history (family diagnoses), to name a few
Hyperspace - Epic's front end graphical user interface (GUI) application. End users log into Hyperspace to access all of Epic's applications. Typically hosted on remote servers and accessed via virtualization tools such as Citrix or VMware.
Hyperspace Toolbar - The top, main toolbar when you log into Hyperspace. Users should personalize this toolbar to add the most commonly used activities for easy access
Key - Epic analysts can use "key" values with indexed items when performing Chronicles searches for quicker, more efficient queries. More on indexed Chronicles searching here
More Activities - The "More" button (formerly "More Activities") is the menu within a workspace, which allows access to additional menu buttons that are not standardly available
NoteWriter - Epic's tool to allow form-based documentation that generates a textual note. Notes written with NoteWriter templates utilize SmartLink SmartBlocks (e.g., @HPI@) that allow the user to access a discrete form for documentation
OpTime - Epic's operating room application
Personal Health Record - A personal health record, or PHR , is an electronic application through which patients can maintain and manage their health information (and that of others for whom they are authorized) in a private, secure, and confidential environment (from www.healthit.gov)
Session Information Report - A report in Epic that allows end users to see key pieces of information to assist in troubleshooting. This report includes details such as the logged in user's name, department, role, template, profile compilation, and workstation
Sherlock - Epic's customer support tool. Healthcare organizations use Sherlock to communicate questions and issues with Epic support