Vocabulary Languages

Vocabularies are validated clinical reference languages, taxonomies, or terminologies that make
healthcare knowledge more useable and accessible. It enables a consistent way of capturing, sharing,
and aggregating health data across sites of care. It also serves as the vehicle to format messages that are
exchanged between computer systems and the coding and classification scheme used within the
messages. For data to flow between systems it is necessary for the messages to have agreement in
syntax so that the individual data elements can be structured in a common way.

Common Nursing Vocabularies

1.) Clinical Care Classification (CCC) system (Saba, 2004)
2.) Omaha System (Martin and Sheet, 1995)

Omaha System

The Omaha System is a research – based, comprehensive taxonomy designed to generate

meaningful data following usual or routine documentation of client care (Martin and Sheet, 1995). It
consist of 3 components:
– the problem classification scheme
– intervention scheme
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The system provides a method for linking clinical data to demographic, financial,
administrative, and staffing data.

The problem classification scheme is a vocabulary for CHN. It was developed in the 1970s by
the Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) of Omaha. This vocabulary is consistent with the general and
comprehensive practice of CHN (Simmons, 1980). Included in the system are 44 nursing problems that
were arrived at empirically front the practice of the community health nurses employed by the visiting
nurse agency. The problems are organized by the four broad domains addressed by community health
nurses: environmental, physiologic, and health – related behaviors. Each problem is described by a list
of signs and symptoms. The problem may be referenced as health promotion, potential, or
deficit/impairment/actual. The patient may be defined as an individual or family (Martin and Sheet,
1995)
The Omaha system also includes terms for interventions. The intervention scheme is an
organized framework of community nursing activities designed to address specific nursing diagnoses
using four broad categories of interventions: health teaching, treatments, case management, and
surveillance. There is also a five point Likert type outcome rating scale that measures the concepts of
knowledge, behavior, and status for each identified nursing diagnosis.

Community Health Information Tracking System

The Community Health Information Tracking System or CHITS is an extensible, modular, open
source information system for rural health units (initially for the Philippines). It collects existing
routine health data from vertical programs in the Field Health Service Information System (FHSIS) and
integrates them into a unified, comprehensive computerized information system. Through CHITS,
community-based health information is made available not only to public health agencies requiring
community level information but also to the community itself which generates the information. It
enables the community to use this information for local decision-making and health planning. In
addition to software, CHITS also includes structured capability-building programs designed to improve
the health information systems within local health centers, regardless of the level of automation.
CHITS began in Pasay City and is now in 18 health facilities (July 2008) around the country with
requests for installation from many more.