Medical Terminology
BREAKING DOWN COMMON MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY
The world of medical terminology is quite vast. Many people learning medical terminology find it helpful to organize terms by category. This makes learning the language of medicine easier to understand.
Our Mission Is to Provide Professional Information and Resources Related to the Language of Medicine
Knowing and understanding medicine’s language helps you analyze, understand, and communicate using medical terms by breaking them down into smaller word parts.
Medical terminology is the language used to describe components and processes of the human body, medical procedures, diseases, disorders, and pharmacology. Simply put, it is the vocabulary medical professionals use to describe the body, what it does, and the treatments they prescribe.
Below are reasons why proper use of Medical Terminology in the workplace is essential for high-quality patient outcomes.
Improve Patient Safety
Quality communication among all healthcare team members improves patient safety by reducing the number of mistakes.
If someone confuses the terminology, putting the wrong condition or procedure into a chart can make a huge difference in patient care.
Improved Patient Experiences
When all team members know medical terminology, they can also help the patient learn what those terms mean. Patient education helps patients become more active in their care team, improving satisfaction.
More Efficient Care
Healthcare professionals may see dozens of patients every day. Physicians or nurses may write quickly and scribble common abbreviations to provide more efficient care. All care team members should be able to understand these abbreviations and terms to provide the best care.
Reduces The Potential for Litigation
Patient protection is vital to avoid injuries, healthcare complications, and litigation. There is less risk of errors when anyone in the healthcare team uses quality and standardized communication.
Streamlined Documentation
Medical terms use abbreviations and terms that can be quickly written down in a fast-paced work environment. This is important and helpful. Medical staff members work with many patients, and because medical terminology is a standardized language, medical practitioners will recognize medical terminology abbreviations.
Reduces Reimbursement Mistakes
Healthcare codes and medical terms often define payment and reimbursement methods. Having this communicated quickly and without errors contributes to better patient satisfaction.
Why Is It Important to Learn Medical Terminology?
Have you ever traveled to a foreign country where nobody spoke your language? Think for a moment about how that felt. At first, you probably felt adrift, out of your depth, like you couldn’t understand anything around you. You couldn’t communicate because of the language barrier.
People see fields like medicine, computer science, and coding the same way because they, too, have their languages. Medical professionals need to know an entire lexicon of medical terms and phrases. This terminology, picked up throughout their education and career, can sound like a foreign language to the uninitiated.
“As to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least, to do no harm.”
― Hippocrates
Proper communication makes a contribution to helping and also doing no harm.
Inaccurate communication does not help and can have a very negative impact on outcomes.
