Waiting period		The time a person has to wait before being approved for coverage by an insurance plan.
Ward X		Slang for the morgue.
WHO		World Health Organization (pronounced as W-H-O, not "who").
Wholesale Acquisition Price
Wholesale Drug Distributors		Businesses that intermediate between drug and med-surg manufacturers and retailers (e.g., pharmacies, hospitals, clinics). According to Investor’s Business Daily, Aug. 17, 1998, these are the the top US wholesalers, Mkt .Value ($000,000) Revenue ($000,000) Pretax Margin McKessonHBOC 7,591.1 18,753.7 1.2% Bergen Brunswig 2,007.3 13,077.2 1.2% Cardinal Health 12,787.1 12,926.8 2.8% AmeriSource Health 1,140.5 8,760.7 1.0% Bindley Western Industries 709.1 7,676.3 0.5% Owens & Minor 398.4 3,887.4 1.3% Perrigo 676.4 884.4 8.4% D & K Healthcare Resources 60.9 612.4 0.3% NCS Healthcare 458.0 509.1 7.2% Priority Healthcare 287.8 244.4 4.4% Moore Medical 39.4 191.4 n/a Chronimed 134.9 140.7 9.7% Sterile Recoveries 80.7 45.2 11.6%
Wholesaler Unit		A shipping unit which (usually) includes multiple NDC packages. Same as SKU.
WIC Program		The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). A Federal program administered by the USDA. Its purpose is to raise the nutritional level of low income families by providing food vouchers which can be redeemed for specified food items at participating food retailers.
Wrongful Disclosure		As defined by the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium, a wrongful disclosure is “An act of a person who knowingly and in violation of the law uses or causes a unique identifier to be used, obtains individually identifiable health information relating to an individual, or discloses individually identifiable health information to another person.”