Health Language Adds Procedures Category with 40,000 Frequently Used Synonyms to Provider Friendly Terminology

Simplifies EMR adoption and use, meaningful use compliance, and accurate coding/reporting for reimbursement and data exchange.

Denver, Colorado, November 3, 2010—Health Language, Inc. (HLI), the global leader in medical terminology management, announced the addition of a procedure category to its provider friendly terminology (PFT) code set that includes 40,000 synonyms, abbreviations and colloquial expressions that are commonly used by healthcare professionals when documenting or searching for patient data. Combining the new procedure category with HLI’s robust diagnosis content and enabling tools creates the industry’s most comprehensive and functional PFT code set. Clinicians, hospitals and independent delivery networks benefit from the resulting interoperability that facilitates health information exchange and complying with meaningful use requirements such as the creation of problem lists, as well as seamless billing and other administrative functions.

Based on the ICD-9 procedure standard, the expanded PFT enables intuitive searching of procedures such as surgeries and includes maps to other widely used terminologies such as SNOMED CT and ICD-10-PCS. The unmatched versatility of the PFT, which is available as a flat file and through HLI’s Language Engine and its cloud-based, scalable Language Engine Access Portal (LEAP), enables providers of all sizes and levels of HIT adoption to easily utilize the data. They gain access to all major code sets and can use their existing tools in conjunction with the flat file or access HLI’s arsenal of tools that have been adopted worldwide to ease data collection, organization and reporting for a electronic health record (EHR) and other health information technology (HIT) applications.

According to HLI’s Chief Medical Officer Brian Levy, M.D., “The ability for physicians, nurses and other clinicians to continue using their preferred clinical terms and descriptions will help encourage broader EHR adoption. Additionally, many EHRs and other clinical and administrative applications are dependent on standardized medical terminologies and billing classifications unfamiliar to clinicians. For example, HLI has created five synonyms for an open biopsy of lung based on physician usage patterns: open bx of lung, open pulmonary biopsy, open lung biopsy, open lung bx, and open pulmonary bx.”

Dr. Levy added, “Utilizing HLI’s provider friendly terminology simplifies the transition to an EHR and helps physicians maintain their productivity by accommodating their existing workflow and preferences rather than forcing them to adjust to constantly evolving codes, standards and reporting mandates.”

About Health Language
Denver-based Health Language, Inc. (HLI) develops and delivers state-of-the-art software solutions that automatically incorporate medical vocabulary and coding standards into healthcare information technology (HCIT) applications. HLI’s Language Engine (LE) allows centralized access to medical terminology standards and generates mappings to create a common pool of standardized codes and concepts that enhance patient safety, facilitate clinical outcomes analysis and accelerate reimbursement. It also provides standards for modeling, storing, updating and distributing information consistently for interoperability between hospitals, regions and countries. For more information, visit www.healthlanguage.com or call 720-940-2900.