| Had he been writing today, the author of Ecclesiastes might well
have written: "Of making many acronyms there is no end, and much
research to discover what they mean is a weariness to the flesh". It
is unlikely that we shall ever be able to escape abbreviations altogether
and, while they save breath and printers' ink, the trouble starts when the
non-specialist is expected to understand the specialist's jargon.
Indeed, it is not uncommon to find that none of the users of some
common acronym actually knows precisely what its letters stand for.
This dictionary was originally proposed to comprise just the
abbreviations and acronyms current among healthcare informaticians, and it
owes its first section almost completely to the second author's extensive
database gathered over years in the field in the UK and Europe.
In recognition, however, that there is life beyond IT, we felt that
here was an opportunity to include a separate section for the benefit of
managers, medical secretaries, and non-medical, non-IT staff in trusts,
hospitals, and general practices.
In this is to be found a selection of the administrative, general, and
medical abbreviations that may be encountered from day to day anywhere in
the NHS administrative terms and job titles, clinicians' 'shorthand',
degrees and diplomas, Latin dispensing terms being perpetuated by GP
software, journal names commonly shortened, and other relevant miscellanea.
The categories we used for convenience to classify the entries are
given as a guide as to the general fields they belong in. Such
categorisation is often arbitrary and only indicates our working choice.
If an abbreviation is not found in one section, the other should be
tried before giving up. The second section, for instance, contains only a
'reduced set' of the IT/ management abbreviations to be found in the first
section; on the other hand the range of job titles and of non-IT
organisations in the second is more extensive than that in the first.
No collection like this can ever be complete, but we do hope this a
good start.
Pages have been provided at the back for users to make notes of
abbreviations they may encounter and wish to remember or offer for
inclusion in future editions. It is cautiously hoped that, with such user
co-operation, the Abbreviary may gradually become increasingly
comprehensive.
HdeG
AVS
1995
Acknowledgements for the first edition
Assistance and contributions from the following are gratefully
acknowledged:
Bud Abbott
Chief Editor, Information Technology in Health Care
Shirley Chipperfield
Assistant Director of Personnel, South Tyneside Healthcare Trust
Professor D M Davis
Editor, Adverse Drug Reaction Bulletin
Joy Reardon
IMG Information Point/NHS Register of Computer Applications
Copyright © 1995–2002 BJHC Limited |
