Category: D

The department in the executive branch of the federal government which is concerned with transportation. One concern of DOT is emergency medical services.  

The federal government department which enforces certain federal laws; for example, antitrust laws. The Department of Justice is headed by the United States Attorney General.  

Descriptions of patient populations or service area populations in such terms as age, sex, race, educational level, income, family size, and ethnic background. Information about a specific population including data on race, age, income, and educational attainment.  

The class of information about a person which includes such items as age, sex, race, income, marital status, and education. Demographic data is important for proper patient care, and is also used as the data with which to compile certain statistics (demographics) on a population, for example, in the study of the distribution of certain…

A process of putting more decision-making into the hands of the individual. A system of health care in which persons collaborate in the decisions about their health and health care is a democratized system.  

Efforts to persuade individuals not to buy, or to go elsewhere. A hospital has a serious problem when the price set for a given Diagnosis Related Group (DRG) under the prospective payment system (PPS) is lower than the lowest cost the hospital can achieve for care for a patient with that DRG and still maintain…

A level of therapeutic intervention capable of providing comprehensive health care services for a specific condition.  

A special class of computer software designed to make relevant knowledge accessible to decision makers.  

An emerging component of integrated computer systems. The data warehouse obtains data from one or more sources and makes it readily available for answering management questions about the organization and its activities. In the hospital, transactions such as patient billing, collecting insurance payments, giving services to patients, purchasing, and others are going on continuously, and…

In general usage, an “item of information.” When used in connection with computers, a data element may be one part of a data record (a logically connected group of data elements).