Glossary of Terms

Term	Definition & Notes
Competency	The combination of observable and measurable abilities, skills and attributes that contribute to aggregated knowledge, job performance and ultimately organizational success.
Competency Category	One of 33 specialized areas of competency, from access, to care coordination, to documentation, to privacy and security, to quality and safety, and others.
Competency Code	A unique identifier for each HITCOMP competency. This code allows the competency to be referenced, mapped to other programs and competencies, aligned with curricula, educational and training resources, etc.
Competency Level	One of five grades of experience and skill for HIT competence and competencies, including: Baseline: A foundation level upon which all other skills and competencies are based. Basic: An entry-level or beginning skill or competency level, equating to “understanding” and “knowing” in Bloom’s Taxonomy. Could potentially align with associate-level degree academic programs or curricular competencies in eHealth/HIT. Intermediate: A mid-level incumbent skill or competency level, equating to “applying” and “analyzing” in Bloom’s Taxonomy. Could potentially align with baccalaureate-degree level academic programs or curricular competencies in eHealth/HIT. Advanced: A high-level incumbent skill or competency level, equating to “evaluating” and “synthesizing” in Bloom’s Taxonomy. Could potentially align with baccalaureate- to master-degree level academic programs or curricular competencies in eHealth/HIT. Expert: The highest level of skill or competency level, also equating to “evaluating” and “synthesizing” in Bloom’s Taxonomy. Could potentially align with master- to post-doctoral-degree level academic programs or curricular competencies in eHealth/HIT. Note/Disclaimer: Levels do not correspond one-to-one to job progression or role levels and can vary by role, organization and location.
Domain	One of five areas of health information technology focus areas, including Direct Patient Care (includes nursing, medicine, allied health, etc.); Administration (includes health administration, finance, law, management, and revenue); Engineering/Information Systems (includes engineering, information and computer technology [ICT], information systems and information technology); Informatics (includes health informatics, clinical informatics, nursing informatics, medical informatics, etc.); and Research/Biomedical (includes areas of focus in research, development, biomedicine, etc.)
Health Care Setting	One of several environments for health care work, including acute care (also called inpatient places of service [POS]), ambulatory care (includes primary and specialty care practices and clinics, also called outpatient POS), skilled nursing facilities and rehabilitation, emergency medicine, surgical and operative theaters, etc.
Role	One of over 250 job types in the acute care setting of health care, whose work could potentially touch eHealth/health IT. The job roles include equivalent names in five major European languages, along with a comprehensive description of each role.
Role Service Category	One of three types of primary acute care services: ancillary (allied health or non-direct patient care), nursing or physician/provider/medical staff.
Role Type	One of four categorical types of health care roles grouped into major job classifications of operational-technical, supervisory-managerial, professional or executive.