Just as you have worked to learn medical terminology and theoretical concepts that later became second nature to you, informatics has its own set of unique acronyms. CPOE, DCW, DTA, HI, IS, EMR, EHR, ARRA to name a few. It is a world where the terminology rolls off your co-workers lips like a foreign language. For example, you might walk down a corridor and hear a conversation that goes something like this: "I checked the DCW and the DTAs are correct, but since we moved to CERT we lost the ARRA piece in the EMR."

The point of this illustration is that as nurses we need to be knowledgeable to basic standardized terminology. It is essential to consider the terms we use to capture our contribution to patient care and patient outcomes. Our activities as nurses must be integrated into a technological system using specific terminology. That is why we have informatics nurses who can bridge the communication gap between the two disciplines, informatics and nursing, to help resolve some of inefficiencies you identified and discussed last week.

From your practice standpoint, what have you read this week in your text or in the lesson that offered a new view or appreciation for standardized terminology? Be specific.