Healthcare in general is infested with Three Letter Acronyms (TLAs). Some are even longer (ETLAs – Extended TLAs). Radiology is similarly aflicted. Some of them are simply too unwieldy to use longhand every time. I have used some abbrieviations for so long I forget what they mean.

To simplify things I’ll add them in here as I use them for future reference.

If I’m really good I might even shuffle then into alphabetical order once in a while.

TLAs & ELAs

AfC – Agenda for Change

KSF – Key Stage Framework

KFC – A term for either/both of the above also the only food sold complete with it’s own rubbish bin, which sums it up perfectly.

PACS – Picture Archiving and Communication System

RIS – Radiology Information System

NPfIT – National Program for IT. now known as…

CfH – Connecting for Health.

DoH – Department of Health.

DNA – Did not attend

DGH – District General Hospital

OOH – Out of Hours

PCT – Primary Care Trust

PAS- Patient Administration System

SoR – Society of Radiographer – The trades union for radiographers

CT- Computerised Tomography (Also CAT – Computerised Axial Tomography). Tomography = imaging by sections or sectioning.

PE – Pulmonary Embolism – blockage in the blood supply to the lungs. Predominantly due to a blood clot but could be due to other obstructive material such as fat (from bone marrow), lumps of tumour etc. A close friend of DVT. If you’ve got a DVT and it snaps off it winds up in your lung as a PE (Long car journey, painful swollen leg, suddenly short of breath with chest pain – you get the picture).

DVT-  Deep Vein Thrombosis – Blood clot in the deep veins, usually of the leg. Can be caused by venous stasis (blood pooling in the leg) due to immobility which is why its associated with air travel (in fact all types of travel without moving about – I’ve had a patient with a DVT who spent too long sitting on National Express – never been on a plane in their life – BTW this is an observation not a criticism of NE – please don’t sue me (it’s not woth it, honest!”))

CTPA- CT Pulmonay Angiography – A CT scan specifically to image the blood supply to the lungs.

VQ scan  Nuclear medicine lung scan almost exclusively used to diagnose a PE. V=Ventilation, Q=Qeulle (which is German for Spring (as in water, not coiled metal). Basically works by comparing the air supply of the lung (ventilation) to the blood supply (perfusion) and playing spot the difference. They match -you’re OK. There are unmatched holes in the perfusion – you’ve got a clot, there are unmatched holes in the ventialtion – you’ve got something else, but we can’t be specific what.
(For you NM bods out there yes I know this is a gross over-simplification)

Other Code Words

Lorenzo- The new PAS to be introduced into our cluster (and others in NHS England) under CfH. Produced by ISoft

ISoft- Software company aparrently teetering on the edge of collapse.

Cluster- England is broken up into 5 sections called clusters under CfH. These do not necessarily follow sensible boundaries. Our oncology centre is in the cluster next door who are therefore unable to view any images we produce now, or for the foreseeable future.