Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

A charting system designed to provide an ongoing plan of care. It begins with the nursing assessment; some hospitals add checklists and flow sheets. A separate care plan is not written; instead, interventions are recorded in the nursing notes. After initial assessment, the nurse identifies actual problems or nursing diagnoses that arise during the shift.…

A nonprofit membership association, an affiliate of Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital, incorporated in 1994. The Institute was an outgrowth of the Picker/Commonwealth Program for Patient-Centered Care, established in 1987, to investigate the discrepancies between routine investigations of patients’ satisfaction with patients’ own accounts of their health care experiences. Its aim is to promote health care…

A specialist in the science of physics, which studies the properties of matter and energy and their interactions. A key member of the radiology team, primarily entrusted with tasks related to equipment calibration, measurement, and testing of radiograph systems and components, among other responsibilities.  

A federal advisory body set up to provide input to the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) regarding methods of saving money in the payment of physicians for services to Medicare patients.  

The 1988 Amendments to the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act (42 U.S.C. sec 263A) subjected the physician office laboratory to the same regulations as independent laboratories. The Amendments require, among other things, certification for all physician office labs except those performing only simple procedures (as defined by the FDA). The Amendments also subjected the POLs to…

Same as a physician-hospital organization (PHO), except that the community is also represented on the governing board along with the hospital and physicians.  

An executive in a health care organization who is a physician.  

A physician who is involved with utilization review and/or quality management to advise on medical necessity and other medical issues, for example in the context of preadmission authorizations or concurrent review. The physician is normally contacted only if the case falls outside specific predetermined criteria. May also be called physician reviewer.  

A way to describe the pre¬ operative condition of a patient, used by anesthesiologists. It was originally devised by the American Society of Anesthetists (predecessor of the American Society of Anesthesiologists) to permit collection and tabulation of statistical data in anesthesia. It has now become a routine, international “shorthand” for anesthesiologists to use in assessing…

A place where medicine is prepared and dispensed. A retail drug store is one type of pharmacy. In a hospital, the pharmacy is a department where medicine is prepared to be administered to inpatients, and to be kept in areas where drugs are administered; for example, the emergency department. Usually, a committee of the medical…