Glossary
Health Information Technologist Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential health information technologist terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key health information technologist vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in health information technologist training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Abstracting
- Extracting data from records.
- Audit trail
- Record of access.
- Cancer registry
- Database of cancer cases.
- Chart deficiency
- Missing documentation.
- Data integrity
- Accuracy and completeness.
- De-identification
- Removing identifiers.
- EHR
- Electronic health record.
- HIM
- Health information management.
- HIPAA
- Federal privacy law.
- ICD-10
- Diagnosis code set.
- Master patient index
- Patient ID database.
- Quality measures
- Care metrics.
- Release of information
- Sharing records legally.
- Retention schedule
- How long records are kept.
- RHIT
- Registered Health Information Technician.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Health Information Technologist practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Health Information Technologist training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.