Acrónimos sanitarios en España: ¿qué significan?

Match Spanish healthcare abbreviations to meanings (Spain-specific hospital/clinic acronyms).

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Dannis

2 min reading time

Health At a doctor's, pharmacy Vocabulary

Keywords:

SNS TSI CAP UCI RX ECO TAC PCR

SNS: ¿qué significa?

Correct: 0/8

Hints for this Quiz

It’s the public healthcare system in Spain.

Correct: Sistema Nacional de Salud – Spain’s public healthcare system. See the section on Spanish medical abbreviations.

Think of the card you show at the health centre.

TSI = Tarjeta Sanitaria Individual, your personal card for accessing the public healthcare system. In different regions you’ll see SIP (Valencia), CIP (Cataluña), TIS (País Vasco), but TSI is understood throughout Spain.

It’s where your family doctor sees you.

CAP (in Catalonia) = Centro de Atención Primaria, equivalent to “centro de salud”. The name is regional, but it refers to primary care with your family/GP doctor.

It’s the area for critical patients.

UCI is the intensive care unit (ICU). This is a standard term in Spanish and is understood everywhere.

Hint: an image made with X-rays.

RX = radiografía, i.e. an X-ray. You’ll often see this abbreviation on test request forms.

Gel and a transducer are used on the skin.

ECO = ecografía (ultrasound). Don’t confuse it with ECG/EKG (electrocardiogram) – that’s something different.

It’s the large scanner in the radiology department.

TAC (or TC) = Tomografía Axial Computarizada, the CT scanner used in radiology.

Think of the test that was used massively during the pandemic.

In the context of diagnosing infections (e.g., COVID‑19), PCR is the polymerase chain reaction test (a diagnostic test). Note: in blood tests, “PCR” can sometimes also mean “proteína C reactiva” (C‑reactive protein), but here we are talking about the diagnostic test.