Hospital software, records platforms and national health systems come with their own vocabulary. This glossary defines the terms you will meet when evaluating an HMS, EMR or laboratory system, or when reading about Bangladesh's digital health programmes. Each entry gives a plain definition, a short note on what the term means for a facility in Bangladesh, and links to related terms. Definitions are vendor-neutral; where a term maps to a page on this site, we link to it.
Records and interoperability
8 terms
EMR
Stands for: Electronic Medical Record
An electronic medical record is the digital version of a patient's chart within a single practice or facility. It holds visit notes, diagnoses, prescriptions, test results and treatment history recorded by that provider. An EMR replaces paper files for day-to-day clinical work: finding a patient, documenting a consultation, ordering tests and printing a prescription. The term is often used interchangeably with EHR, although an EMR is usually scoped to one organisation rather than designed for sharing across providers.
In practice
For a clinic or chamber in Bangladesh, an EMR mainly replaces handwritten prescriptions and patient registers, so that a returning patient's history, allergies and previous prescriptions are available at the next visit.
An electronic health record is a longitudinal record of a person's health that is designed to be shared across the providers and settings involved in their care. Where an EMR captures what happened inside one facility, an EHR is meant to follow the patient: referrals, hospital admissions, laboratory results and medications from different sources are collected against one identity. Achieving this depends on interoperability standards such as HL7 FHIR and on a reliable way to identify the patient. A personal health record (PHR) is the patient-controlled counterpart.
In practice
Most facilities in Bangladesh start with a records system used inside one organisation. Choosing one built on FHIR keeps the option open to exchange records with other facilities or national systems later.
Stands for: Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources
FHIR is a standard published by HL7 International for exchanging healthcare information electronically. It describes clinical and administrative content as modular resources such as Patient, Encounter, Observation and MedicationRequest, and defines how systems read and write them over ordinary web technologies: REST APIs and JSON or XML. Because it uses the same building blocks as modern web development, FHIR is easier to implement than older healthcare messaging standards and has become the common basis for new integrations between records systems, laboratories, apps and national health platforms.
In practice
Shafa HMS and Shafa EHR are built on HL7 FHIR, so patient, encounter and result data can be exchanged with other FHIR-capable systems without a custom format for each connection.
Stands for: Health Level Seven, version 2 messaging
HL7 Version 2 is a family of messaging standards, maintained by HL7 International, that has connected hospital systems since the late 1980s. Messages are pipe-delimited text organised into segments (for example PID for patient identification and OBX for an observation) and are triggered by events such as a patient admission (ADT), a test order (ORM) or a result (ORU). HL7 v2 remains the most widely deployed way to link registration, laboratory, radiology and billing systems inside a hospital, and much laboratory and imaging equipment is still integrated through it.
In practice
When a facility already runs a separate laboratory or radiology system, the practical integration question is usually whether both sides can exchange HL7 v2 messages. Shafa HMS supports HL7 messaging alongside FHIR.
Interoperability is the ability of different information systems to exchange data and to use the data they receive. It is usually described in layers: technical (systems can connect and transfer data), syntactic (they agree on message structure, as with HL7 v2 or FHIR), semantic (they agree on meaning, through shared code systems such as ICD or LOINC) and organisational (policies and agreements allow the exchange to happen). Application programming interfaces (APIs) are the technical mechanism most modern systems expose for this purpose.
In practice
For a facility, interoperability decides whether a laboratory result, a referral or a national report can move between systems without being typed twice. Ask any vendor which standards and APIs a product actually exposes.
An electronic prescription is a prescription created, stored and transmitted digitally instead of being handwritten. The prescriber selects drugs from a structured list, specifies dose, route, frequency and duration, and the system produces a legible printed or digital copy for the patient and the pharmacy. Because the drug and dose are stored as data, the system can check for duplicate therapies, allergies and interactions, keep a medication history, and pass the order to a hospital pharmacy or dispensing counter without re-entry.
In practice
Printed prescriptions in a standard layout are already common in larger hospitals in Bangladesh. The gain from a records-based e-prescription is the medication history behind it and the direct link to pharmacy dispensing and billing.
Stands for: International Classification of Diseases
The International Classification of Diseases is the World Health Organization's standard for classifying diagnoses, injuries and causes of death. Each condition receives an alphanumeric code, so that records, statistics and claims can be compared across facilities and countries. ICD-10 has been in use for decades; ICD-11 is its successor and is being adopted gradually. Coding a diagnosis at the point of care is what makes disease reporting, morbidity statistics and case-mix analysis possible. SNOMED CT is a separate, more detailed clinical terminology that is often mapped to ICD.
In practice
Monthly reports to health authorities typically ask for case counts by disease category, so a records system that captures an ICD code with each diagnosis makes those reports much easier to compile.
A patient identifier is the unique number or code a system assigns to a person so that every registration, visit, test and bill is attached to the right record. Inside one facility this is usually a medical record number (MRN) or registration ID. Across facilities, a master patient index (MPI) or a national health ID is used to recognise the same person in different systems. Reliable identification depends on capturing enough demographic detail, such as name, date of birth and phone number, to detect and merge duplicate records.
In practice
Duplicate registrations are the most common data problem in facilities moving from paper. Searching by phone number and date of birth before creating a new patient, and merging duplicates when found, keeps histories usable.
A hospital management system is integrated software that runs the administrative, clinical and financial work of a hospital or clinic on one shared database. Typical modules cover registration, outpatient and inpatient care, operation theatre scheduling, laboratory, pharmacy, inventory, billing, accounts, human resources and management reporting. Its advantage over separate tools is that data flows between departments: a test ordered in the OPD appears on the laboratory worklist, and the result, the charge and the stock consumed are each recorded once. Also called a hospital information system (HIS).
In practice
Private hospitals and clinics in Bangladesh often run billing in one tool and keep registers on paper. Moving to an HMS is mainly a decision to hold patient, department and finance data in one place.
The outpatient department is where patients are seen without being admitted: consultations, follow-ups, minor procedures and referrals for tests. In software terms, OPD management covers registering the patient, booking or queuing them for a doctor, recording the consultation, generating a prescription and investigation orders, and collecting consultation fees. Because OPD volumes are high and visits are short, the module is judged on speed at the front desk and the doctor's screen, and on how cleanly it hands off to laboratory, pharmacy and billing.
In practice
In Bangladesh, OPD is often the busiest part of a facility and the first place patients form an opinion of it. Token queues, appointment slots and printed prescriptions are the features most facilities ask about first.
The inpatient department covers patients who are admitted and occupy a bed. IPD management in software follows the admission from the moment a bed is allocated: doctors' orders, nursing notes and vital signs, medications administered, investigations, procedures, transfers between wards or to intensive care, and the running account of bed charges, services and consumables. It ends with discharge, when the system produces a final bill and a discharge summary, the clinical document that records the diagnosis, treatment given, condition at discharge and follow-up instructions.
In practice
For hospitals, the IPD module is where most billing disputes originate. A running account that a patient's family can be shown at any point, and an itemised final bill, reduce arguments at discharge.
The operation theatre is the surgical unit of a hospital. OT management software schedules theatre time against surgeon, anaesthetist and equipment availability, records pre-operative checks and consent, captures the operation note, anaesthesia record and the consumables and implants used, and tracks the patient through recovery and post-operative care. Surgical safety checklists, such as the one published by the World Health Organization, are commonly built into the workflow. Charges for theatre time, surgeon fees and materials are posted to the patient's inpatient bill.
In practice
Theatre utilisation is one of the clearest operational measures a hospital can improve with software: a shared schedule replaces phone calls and registers, and every implant used is traced to a patient and a bill.
Bed management is the process of tracking every bed in a facility (its ward, class, cleaning status and current occupant) so that admissions, transfers and discharges can be planned. A bed board shows in real time which beds are occupied, reserved, being cleaned or out of service. Good bed management shortens the wait between a decision to admit and the patient reaching a bed, and gives management an accurate occupancy rate, average length of stay and turnover interval for each ward and bed class.
In practice
Bed class (general ward, cabin, ICU) drives both clinical routing and pricing in most hospitals in Bangladesh, so the bed board and the tariff must use the same definitions.
A queue or token system issues each patient a sequence number at registration and calls them in order, replacing physical lines outside consultation rooms and counters. In a hospital system, tokens are usually generated per doctor or per counter, shown on a display or announced, and linked to the patient's registration so that the doctor's screen opens the right record when the number is called. Advanced versions support appointment slots, priority tokens for emergencies or elderly patients, SMS notifications, and reporting on waiting time per doctor.
In practice
Token systems are among the most requested features in Bangladeshi OPDs because they make waiting visibly fair. The main design choice is whether tokens are issued on arrival, in advance by phone or app, or both.
Stands for: Management Information System reporting
MIS reporting is the set of periodic reports a facility produces from its operational data for its own management and for external bodies: patient volumes by department, bed occupancy, top diagnoses, laboratory and pharmacy throughput, revenue and collections, and staff productivity. In a well-integrated hospital system these reports are generated from transactions already recorded rather than compiled by hand at month end. The term is widely used in South Asian health administration, where facilities submit monthly statistical returns to health authorities in prescribed formats.
In practice
Facilities that report to DGHS submit data through its management information system (MIS) unit, largely via DHIS2. An HMS that produces the same indicators from daily transactions removes a recurring month-end burden.
The revenue cycle is everything that happens between a patient receiving a service and the facility being paid for it. Hospital billing software records charges as services are delivered (consultation, tests, bed days, procedures, medicines), applies the facility's tariff and any discounts or package rates, collects payments and advances, handles insurance or corporate credit where it applies, and reconciles daily collections. Revenue cycle management adds the controls around this: unbilled service checks, discount approvals, refund handling and the posting of billing totals into the general ledger.
In practice
Most patients in Bangladesh pay out of pocket, so cash handling, deposits against admission and discount control matter more than claims processing. Package pricing for common procedures is a frequent requirement.
A laboratory information system manages the workflow of a clinical laboratory from test order to reported result. It receives orders from the outpatient or inpatient system, prints barcoded labels at sample collection, tracks each sample through accessioning and analysis, captures results either by interface with analysers or by manual entry, applies reference ranges and flags abnormal values, routes results for verification by a pathologist and releases the final report. It also records quality-control runs, reagent use and turnaround time, the elapsed time from collection to reported result.
In practice
Diagnostic centres in Bangladesh compete on report delivery time and accuracy. An LIS with barcode tracking and analyser interfaces removes the transcription step where most reporting errors occur.
Sample barcode tracking assigns each specimen a unique barcoded label at the moment it is collected, then scans it at every subsequent step: receipt in the laboratory, loading on an analyser, aliquoting, storage and disposal. The barcode ties the physical tube to the electronic order, so results are matched to the right patient without anyone reading a handwritten name. It also gives a time-stamped chain of custody that shows where a sample is, how long each stage took and who handled it.
In practice
For a diagnostic centre with collection points or home collection, barcodes printed at the point of collection are the practical difference between tracing a misplaced sample and repeating the test.
An analyser interface is the connection between a laboratory instrument (a haematology counter, chemistry analyser or immunoassay system) and the laboratory information system. A unidirectional interface sends results from the instrument to the LIS. A bidirectional interface also sends the test orders from the LIS to the instrument, so the analyser knows which tests to run when it reads a sample's barcode. Interfaces are built on protocols such as ASTM and HL7 v2, often through middleware that handles the differences between instrument makers.
In practice
Ask whether a vendor has interfaced the specific instrument models a laboratory owns. Interfacing is done per model, and older instruments may only support one-way result transfer.
A pharmacy management system handles the dispensing and stock side of medicines. At the counter it looks up or receives prescriptions, checks stock by batch, records the sale or ward issue, prints the invoice and updates inventory in the same step. Behind the counter it manages purchase orders, supplier invoices, goods receipt, returns, expiry dates and controlled-drug registers, and reports on fast-moving, slow-moving and near-expiry items. In a hospital it connects to the records system for prescriptions and to billing and accounts for charges and purchases.
In practice
Pharmacies in Bangladesh handle many brands of the same generic and frequent supplier returns. Generic-name search with brand substitution and batch-level returns are worth testing in any demo.
Batch and expiry tracking records the manufacturer's batch number and expiry date for every lot of a medicine or consumable received, and keeps stock separately per batch rather than as one total. This makes it possible to dispense the earliest-expiring batch first (FEFO), to block sales of expired stock, to see the value of stock approaching expiry in time to return it to the supplier, and to trace exactly which patients received a batch if a recall or quality complaint arises.
In practice
Expiry losses are a direct cash cost for pharmacies and hospital stores. A near-expiry report, run monthly, is often the first measurable saving after moving off manual registers.
A hospital inventory management system tracks the non-drug supplies a facility consumes: surgical consumables, implants, reagents, linen, stationery and spare parts, across a central store and departmental sub-stores. It records purchases, receipts, issues, transfers, returns and physical counts, holds a reorder point and reorder quantity for each item so that purchase requests are raised before stock runs out, and values stock for the accounts. Linking consumption to patients (for example, implants used in theatre) lets costs be charged and traced accurately.
In practice
Medicines are usually managed in the pharmacy module and everything else in inventory. Facilities should decide early which items belong where, so that reports and reorder rules are not split between two lists.
Role-based access control (RBAC) grants permissions according to a user's role in the organisation rather than person by person. A receptionist can register patients but not view clinical notes; a doctor can see and write records for their patients; a finance officer can see bills but not diagnoses. Each user is assigned one or more roles, and every screen and action in the system checks those roles. This limits accidental exposure of patient data, simplifies onboarding and leaving, and supports the principle of minimum necessary access.
In practice
Shafa HMS and Shafa EHR use role-based access, so a facility can mirror its own staffing structure. Shared logins between staff defeat the purpose and should be avoided from day one.
An audit log is a tamper-evident record of who did what in a system and when: logins and failed logins, records viewed, fields changed with their old and new values, prescriptions issued, bills edited or cancelled, and reports exported. Unlike ordinary application logs, audit logs are kept for accountability rather than debugging, are retained for a defined period and cannot be edited by ordinary users. They allow a facility to investigate a complaint and to satisfy auditors that financial and clinical changes are traceable.
In practice
Bill cancellations and discount edits are where hospital owners in Bangladesh most often want an audit trail. Shafa HMS keeps audit logs of clinical and financial changes for this reason.
Encryption converts data into a form that cannot be read without the correct key. Encryption in transit protects data while it moves across a network, for example between a browser and the server, usually with TLS (HTTPS). Encryption at rest protects stored data on disks, databases and backups, so that a stolen drive or a copied backup file does not expose patient records. Both are standard expectations for health software; the questions to ask are which data is covered, where the keys are kept and who can use them.
In practice
Shafa products encrypt data in transit and at rest. For on-premise deployments the facility should also control physical access to the server and keep backup media encrypted.
Stands for: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
HIPAA is a United States federal law, passed in 1996, whose Privacy and Security Rules set out how covered organisations and their contractors must protect individually identifiable health information: administrative safeguards such as risk assessments and staff training, physical safeguards for equipment and facilities, and technical safeguards including access control, audit logging, integrity checks and encryption. It applies to organisations operating under US jurisdiction. Elsewhere, HIPAA-style is shorthand for adopting the same safeguards as good practice, not a certification; no body certifies software as HIPAA compliant.
In practice
Facilities in Bangladesh are not subject to HIPAA, but its safeguards are a useful checklist when comparing vendors: access control, audit logs, encryption and a clear data-handling policy.
Data residency is the question of where data is physically stored and which country's laws apply to it. Health software is deployed either in the cloud, on a hosting provider's servers, or on-premise, on servers the facility owns and keeps in its own building. Cloud deployment shifts hardware, backups and updates to the provider; on-premise keeps data inside the facility and works without internet but makes the facility responsible for power, hardware, backups and physical security. Hybrid arrangements keep a local server synchronised with a cloud copy.
In practice
Many hospital owners in Bangladesh prefer to keep patient data on a server they can see. Shafa HMS can be deployed in the cloud or on-premise; either way, ask who holds the backups and how data is returned if the contract ends.
Offline-first software is designed to keep working when the internet connection is slow or absent, storing transactions locally and synchronising them with the central server when connectivity returns. For a hospital this means registration, billing and dispensing continue during an outage rather than reverting to paper. The difficult part is synchronisation: two locations may edit the same record while disconnected, so the system needs rules for merging changes, for generating unique identifiers without a central server, and for showing users which data has not yet reached the server.
In practice
Connectivity outside major cities in Bangladesh is unreliable, and power cuts are common. Shafa HMS supports offline sync so that front-desk and billing work continues and uploads when the connection is back.
Stands for: Directorate General of Health Services
The Directorate General of Health Services is the agency under Bangladesh's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare responsible for delivering and overseeing public health services across the country, from upazila health complexes to district and medical college hospitals. Its management information system (MIS) unit collects routine health data from facilities, publishes the annual Health Bulletin and leads the government's digital-health programmes, including the national roll-out of DHIS2 and initiatives around electronic health records. Private hospitals, clinics and diagnostic centres are licensed through DGHS.
In practice
Shafa Care has engaged with DGHS on national digital-health work. For a facility, DGHS matters as the licensing authority and as the body whose reporting formats an HMS should be able to produce.
Stands for: District Health Information Software 2
DHIS2 is an open-source platform for collecting, validating, analysing and presenting aggregate health data, developed and maintained by the HISP Centre at the University of Oslo and used as a national health information system in many countries. Facilities or district offices enter monthly counts (patients seen, deliveries, immunisations, cases of notifiable diseases) against a national data set, and the platform produces dashboards and indicators for programme managers. It is designed for aggregate reporting rather than individual patient records, although a tracker module supports case-based data.
In practice
Bangladesh's public health sector uses DHIS2 as its routine health information system under DGHS. A facility HMS does not replace DHIS2; the practical goal is to produce the monthly indicators from the HMS without re-counting registers.
A shared health record is a central, longitudinal record that collects key clinical information about a person from every facility they visit, so that a doctor at one facility can see relevant history from another. In Bangladesh, the Shared Health Record (SHR) is an initiative led by the DGHS management information system unit to build such a national repository, linked to a unique health identifier and a registry of facilities and providers, with facility systems exchanging data through standards-based interfaces. It is national infrastructure, not a product facilities buy.
In practice
The SHR was designed around open standards, including HL7 FHIR. A facility system that already exchanges FHIR resources is better placed to connect if a national link is required; confirm the current onboarding process with DGHS.
A health ID is a unique identifier issued to a person at national level so that their records can be recognised across facilities and programmes. It is separate from a facility's own registration number and is normally linked to a client registry that stores the person's demographics and verifies identity against documents such as a national ID or birth registration. Several countries use such identifiers; in Bangladesh a unique health ID has been part of the design of the Shared Health Record initiative.
In practice
Until a national identifier is universally issued and verifiable, facilities should keep their own robust patient identifier and store any national ID or health ID as an additional field, so records can be linked later.
Telemedicine is the delivery of clinical care at a distance using telecommunications: video or audio consultations, exchange of images and reports, remote monitoring of vital signs and follow-up by message. A telemedicine service needs identity verification for both patient and clinician, a way to record the consultation in the patient's record, secure transmission, electronic prescribing, payment, and a clear rule for when a patient must be seen in person. Licensing and prescribing rules for remote consultation are set by each country's regulators.
In practice
Telemedicine is most useful in Bangladesh for follow-up visits and for patients far from specialist centres. The value for a facility comes when remote consultations write to the same record and bill through the same system as in-person visits.
A digital health strategy is a government's plan for how information technology will support its health system: which national platforms will exist (identifiers, registries, a shared record, reporting), which standards facilities and vendors must follow, how data will be governed and protected, and how it is sequenced and funded. The World Health Organization publishes guidance for such strategies, including the Digital Implementation Investment Guide. Bangladesh has published national digital-health strategy documents, and its programmes such as DHIS2 and the Shared Health Record sit within that framework.
In practice
Shafa Care has applied the WHO Digital Implementation Investment Guide methodology in its national digital-health work with DGHS. For a facility, the strategy matters because it signals which standards, such as FHIR, future national systems will expect.
A glossary explains the vocabulary; a demo shows how the pieces fit together in daily use. Book a walkthrough of Shafa HMS or Shafa EHR with our team, or read the product pages to see which modules and standards each one covers.