Abbreviations you may find in your health records
If you do not know what something in your health records means, ask your doctor, nurse or pharmacist.
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National Guideline Centre (UK). Chronic Heart Failure in Adults: Diagnosis and Management. London: National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE); 2018 Sep. (NICE Guideline, No. 106.)
Chronic Heart Failure in Adults: Diagnosis and Management.
NICE Guideline, No. 106.
National Guideline Centre (UK).
London: National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE); 2018 Sep.
12 Acronyms and abbreviations
| Acronym or abbreviation | Description |
|---|---|
| 6MWT | 6 Minute Walk Test |
| ACA | |
| ACC/AHA | American College of Cardiology/American Heart Assocation |
| AE | Adverse events |
| ACE | Angiotensin-converting enzyme |
| ACE-I | Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors |
| ACS | Acute Coronary Syndrome |
| ADHF/AHF | Acute decompensated heart failure/Acute heart failure |
| ADMIRE-HF | AdreView Myocardial Imaging for Risk Evaluation in Heart Failure |
| AF | Atrial fibrillation |
| AKI | Acute kidney injury |
| AMCKD | Anaemia management in people with chronic kidney disease |
| AUC | Area under the curve |
| ARA | Action research arm |
| ARB | Angiotensin II receptor blockers |
| ARD | Assessment Reference Date |
| AROC | Australasian Rehabilitation Outcomes Centre |
| BB | Beta-blocker |
| BBL | |
| BEST | Beta-Blocker Evaluation of Survival Trial |
| BHF | British Heart Foundation |
| BMI | Body Mass Index |
| BMT | Best medical therapy |
| BNF | British National Formulary |
| BNP | B-type natriuretic peptide |
| BP | Blood pressure |
| CAD | Coronary artery disease |
| CAS | Complex Adaptive System |
| CABG | Coronary artery bypass grafting |
| CC | Comparative cost |
| CCA | Cost-consequence analysis |
| CCS | |
| CDR | Clinical Decision Rule |
| CE | Cost effective |
| CEA | Cost effectiveness analysis |
| CERQual | Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative Research’ |
| CG | Control group |
| CHF | Chronic heart failure |
| CI | Confidence intervals |
| CINAHL | Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature |
| CKD | Chronic kidney disease |
| CM | Cardiomyopathy |
| cMRI | Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging |
| COPD | Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease |
| CPET | Cardiopulmonary exercise testing |
| CR | Cardiac rehabilitation |
| CRT | Cardiac resynchronisation therapy |
| CUA | Cost-utility analysis |
| CV mortality | Cardiovascular mortality |
| CXR | Chest X-ray |
| DM | Diabetes mellitus |
| DRG | Diagnosis-related group |
| EBM | Evidence based medicine |
| ECHO | Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes |
| EDTA | Ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid |
| EF | Ejection fraction |
| EGFR | Estimated glomerular filtration rate |
| EHO | |
| EIMA | |
| EME | Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation |
| ELISA | Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay |
| ESC | European Society of Cardiology |
| EQ-5D | Euroqual (measurement of health outcomes) |
| GC | Guideline Committee |
| GFS | |
| FCM | Ferric carboxymaltose |
| FDA | Food and Drug Administration |
| FG | Focus group |
| FN | False negative |
| FP | False positive |
| FVC | Forced vital capacity |
| GFR | Glomerular filtration rate |
| GRADE | Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation |
| HBT | Home-Based Tele-management |
| HCAHPS | Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems |
| HCP | Healthcare professional |
| HDS | Heart disease and stroke |
| HMRS | HeartMate II Risk Score |
| HEED | Health Economic Evaluations Database |
| HF | Heart failure |
| HFPEF | Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction |
| HFREF | Heart failure with reduced ejection fraction |
| HLR | Heart-to-lung ratio |
| HETG | Home-based exercise training group |
| HFMS | Heart Failure Monitoring System |
| HH | Human to human interface |
| HTA | Health Technology Appraisal |
| HTN | Hypertension |
| HR | Hazard ratio |
| HRQoL | Heath-related quality of life |
| ICD | Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators |
| ICU | Intensive care unit |
| ICER | Incremental cost-effectiveness ratio |
| IG | Interventions group |
| IHD | Ischemic heart disease |
| IIM | Intrathoracic impedance measurement |
| IN-CHF | Italian Heart Failure Registry |
| INR | International normalized ratio |
| IPD | Individual patient data |
| IQR | Interquartile range |
| ISWT | Incremental shuttle walk test |
| ITT | Intention-to-treat analysis |
| IV | Intravenous |
| JVP | Jugular venous pressure |
| LTC | Long term care |
| LTOT | Long term oxygen therapy |
| LV | Left ventricle |
| LVAD | Left Ventricular Assist Device |
| LVER | Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction |
| LVSD | Left ventricular systolic dysfunction |
| LY | Life year |
| LYG | Life years gained |
| MAGGIC | Meta-analysis Global Group in Chronic Heart Failure |
| MD | Medical devices |
| MDRD | Modification of Diet in Renal Disease Study |
| MDT | Multidisciplinary team |
| MHRA | Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency |
| MI | Myocardial infarction |
| MIBG | Meta-iodobenzylguanidine |
| MICE | Male, Infarction, Crepitations, Edema |
| MID | Minimal important differences |
| Minnesota LWHFQ | Minnesota Living With Heart Failure Questionnaire |
| MLWHF | Minnesota Living with Heart Failure |
| MCS | Mental component summary |
| MRA | Mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists |
| MRC | London Institute of Medical Sciences |
| NSAIDS | Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs |
| NGC | National Guideline Centre |
| NHLBI | National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute |
| NHS EED | NHS Economic Evaluation Database |
| NICE | National Institute for Health and Care Excellence |
| NIHR | National Institute for Health Research |
| NIHSS | National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale |
| NMA | Network meta-analysis |
| NOT | Nocturnal therapy |
| NPT | Normalisation Process Theory |
| NP | Natriuretic peptides including BNP and NT-proBNP |
| NPV | Negative predictive value |
| NR | Not reported |
| NRS | Numerical rating scale |
| NS | Not stated [in study paper] |
| NT-proBNP | N-terminus pro B type natriuretic peptide |
| NYHA | New York Heart Association Classification |
| OECD | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development |
| ONS | Office for National Statistics |
| PCI | Percutaneous coronary intervention |
| PCP | Primary care physicians |
| PCS | Physical component summary |
| PDA | Personal digital assistant |
| PICO | Population, intervention, comparison and outcome |
| PND | Paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnoea |
| PPV | Positive predictive value |
| PROBAST | Prediction study Risk of Bias Assessment Tool |
| PSSRU | Personal Social Services Research Unit |
| pt | People with chronic heart failure |
| QALY | Quality-adjusted life years |
| QOL | Quality of life |
| QUADAS-2 | Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies version 2 |
| RAS | Renin-angiotensin-system |
| RCT | Random control trial |
| RENAISSANCE | Randomized Enbrel North American Strategy to Study Antagonism of Cytokines |
| ROC | Receiver operating characteristics |
| RPE | Rating of Perceived Exertion |
| RR | Relative risk/Risk ratio |
| SA | Sensitivity analysis |
| SBP | Systolic Blood Pressure |
| SD | Standard deviation |
| SE | Standard error |
| SETG | Supervised exercise training group |
| SHFM | Seattle Heart Failure Model |
| SHFM-D | Seattle Heart Failure Model-D |
| SMD | Standard Mean Difference |
| SPECT | Single photon emission computed tomography |
| STS | Structured telephone support |
| STS HH | Structured telephone support via human to human interface |
| SGA | Subgroup analysis |
| TIA | Transient ischaemic attack |
| TM | Telemonitoring |
| TN | True negative |
| TP | True positive |
| TSAT | Transferrin saturations |
| TTO | Time trade off |
| UHFO-IA | Utrecht Heart Failure Organisation–Initial Assessment |
| VAS | Visual analogue scale |
| Acronym or abbreviation | Description |
| ABC | In full |
| ABC | In full |
| ABC | In full |
Abbreviations you may find in your health records
Here you can find out what some of the most common medical abbreviations mean. This may be useful if you want to understand your health records. An abbreviation is a short way of writing a longer word or phrase.
Important
Healthcare staff sometimes use the same abbreviations to mean different things.
If you do not know what something in your health records means, ask your doctor, nurse or pharmacist.
List of abbreviations
| Abbreviation | Meaning |
|---|---|
| # | broken bone (fracture) |
| A&E | accident and emergency |
| a.c. | before meals |
| a.m., am, AM | morning |
| AF | atrial fibrillation |
| AMHP | approved mental health professional |
| APTT | activated partial thromboplastin time (a measure of how long it takes your blood to clot) |
| ASQ | Ages and Stages Questionnaire (a set of questions about children’s development) |
| b.d.s, bds, BDS | 2 times a day |
| b.i.d., bid, bd | twice a day / twice daily / 2 times daily |
| BMI | body mass index |
| BNO | bowels not open |
| BO | bowels open |
| BP | blood pressure |
| c/c | chief complaint |
| CMHN | community mental health nurse |
| CPN | community psychiatric nurse |
| CSF | cerebrospinal fluid |
| CSU | catheter stream urine sample |
| CT scan | computerised tomography scan |
| CVP | central venous pressure |
| CXR | chest X-ray |
| DNACPR | do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation |
| DNAR | do not attempt resuscitation |
| DNR | do not resuscitate |
| Dr | doctor |
| DVT | deep vein thrombosis |
| Dx | diagnosis |
| ECG | electrocardiogram |
| ED | emergency department |
| EEG | electroencephalogram |
| EMU | early morning urine sample |
| ESR | erythrocyte sedimentation rate (a type of blood test used to help diagnose conditions associated with inflammation) |
| EUA | examination under anaesthetic |
| FBC | full blood count (a type of blood test) |
| FOBT | faecal occult blood test (a test to check for blood traces in your poo) |
| FIT | faecal immunochemical test (a test to check for blood traces in your poo) |
| FY1 FY2 | foundation doctor |
| GA | general anaesthetic |
| gtt., gtt | drop(s) |
| h., h | hour |
| h/o | history of |
| Hb | haemoglobin (a substance in red blood cells that moves oxygen around the body) |
| HCA | healthcare assistant |
| HCSW | healthcare support worker |
| HDL | high-density lipoprotein (a type of cholesterol) |
| HRT | hormone replacement therapy |
| Ht | height |
| Hx | history |
| i | 1 tablet |
| ii | 2 tablets |
| iii | 3 tablets |
| i.m., IM | injection into a muscle |
| i.v., IV | injection directly to a vein |
| INR | international normalised ratio (a measure of how long blood takes to clot) |
| IVI | intravenous infusion |
| IVP | intravenous pyelogram (an X-ray of your urinary tract) |
| Ix | investigations |
| LA | local anaesthetic |
| LDL | low-density lipoprotein (a type of cholesterol) |
| LFT | liver function test (a type of blood test measuring enzymes and proteins in your liver) |
| LMP | last menstrual period |
| M/R | modified release |
| MRI | magnetic resonance imaging |
| MRSA | methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus |
| MSU | mid-stream urine sample |
| n.p.o., npo, NPO | nothing by mouth / not by oral administration |
| NAD | nothing abnormal discovered |
| NAI | non-accidental injury |
| NBM | nil by mouth |
| NG | nasogastric (running between your nose and stomach) |
| nocte | every night |
| NoF | neck of femur |
| NSAID | non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug |
| o.d., od, OD | once a day |
| o/e | on examination |
| OT | occupational therapist |
| p.c. | after food |
| p.m., pm, PM | afternoon or evening |
| p.o., po, PO | orally / by mouth / oral administration |
| POD | podiatrist |
| p.r., pr, PR | rectally |
| p.r.n., prn, PRN | as needed |
| p/c | presenting complaint |
| PT | physiotherapist |
| POP | plaster of paris |
| PTT | partial thromboplastin time (a measure of how quickly your blood clots) |
| PU | passed urine |
| q. | every |
| q.1.d., q1d | every day |
| q.1.h., q1h | every hour |
| q.2.h., q2h | every 2 hours |
| q.4.h., q4h | every 4 hours |
| q.6.h., q6h | every 6 hours |
| q.8.h., q8h | every 8 hours |
| q.d., qd | every day / daily |
| q.d.s, qds, QDS | 4 times a day |
| q.h., qh | every hour, hourly |
| q.i.d, qid | 4 times a day |
| q.o.d., qod | every other day / alternate days |
| q.s., qs | a sufficient quantity (enough) |
| RN | registered nurse |
| RNLD | learning disability nurse |
| ROSC | return of spontaneous circulation |
| RTA | road traffic accident |
| Rx | treatment |
| s.c., SC | injection under the skin |
| S/R | sustained release |
| SLT | speech and language therapist |
| SpR | specialist registrar |
| stat. | immediately, with no delay, now |
| STEMI | ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction |
| t.d.s, tds, TDS | 3 times a day |
| t.i.d., tid | 3 times a day |
| TCI | to come in |
| TFT | thyroid function test |
| TPN | total parenteral nutrition |
| TPR | temperature, pulse and respiration |
| TTA | to take away |
| TTO | to take out |
| U&E | urea and electrolytes |
| u.d., ud | as directed |
| UCC | urgent care centre |
| UTI | urinary tract infection |
| VLDL | very-low density lipoprotein (a type of cholesterol) |
| VTE | venous thromboembolism (a blood clot that forms in a vein) |
| Wt | weight |
If you cannot find the abbreviation you are looking for
Speak to your doctor, nurse or pharmacist for help with understanding your health records.
More in Health records in your NHS App
Page last reviewed: 22 August 2022
Next review due: 22 August 2025
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