📚Glossary

A list of common terms, acronyms, and abbrevations

Industry Terms

Term	Statement	Description	Variations
PIMS	Practice Information Management System	What Vetspire is! Practice Management systems typically include the medical records, billing systems, and scheduling software bundled into one software platform, either cloud-based or on-premise.	PMS
DVM	Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine	A veterinarian (DVM is the animal-equivalent of an MD).
FTE	Full-time Equivalent	Someone who works full-time
Rx	Prescription	A medication that is prescribed.
Vx	Vaccination	A vaccination/immunization.
Hx	History	History of the medical problem that an animal is sufferring
SOAP	Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan	The medical note for a visit; almost every medical record/documentation for a patient visit includes these 4 sections at a minimum, and thus lots of veterinarians simply refer to the whole medical record portion of a patient chart as the "SOAPs". Vetspire calls these Encounters.	Record, Encounter
Tech	Technician	Veterinary technicians are equivalent to human nurses, and they can be licensed as Registered Veterinary Technicians, that assist veterinarians and perform basic care.	Nurse, Vet Tech, CVT
EHR	Electronic Health Record	The medical records portion of a PIMS system	EMR

Vetspire Terms

Term	Description	Variations
Encounter	A medical record for a specific patient visit.
NOVA	In-patient treatment sheet module	Treatment Sheets, Whiteboard

General Terms

Term	Statement	Description	Variations
TLDR	Too long; didn't read.	A one-ish line summary of some content. Typically at the end of the content.	TL;DR:
BLUF	Bottom line; up front.	A one-ish line summary of some content. Typically at the start of the content	BL;UF:
ADR	Architecture(/Any) Decision Record	Document describing proposal & decision making process for changes in how we operate.

Engineering Terms

Term	Statement	Description	Variations
PR	Pull Request	A proposed change to the codebase that is now up for review.	TL;D
			BL;UF