top of page

Glossary

​The WP2 team together with the LC will agree on key concepts including references to the relevant sources and acronyms to be published in a ‘public glossary’ via the project’s website. The aim of the public glossary is to ensure a public understanding of Xt-EHR’s results/work available from the project’s website.

Concept preferred name

Acronym/ Synonym

Definition

Definition Source

Note

Big Data in Health

Big Data in Health refers to large routinely or automatically collected datasets, which are electronically captured and stored. It is reusable in the sense of multipurpose data and comprises the fusion and connection of existing databases for the purpose of improving health and health system performance. It does not refer to data collected for a specific study.

Conformity, conformance 

​Conformity Assessment Scheme 

Continuity of Care

Compliance 

Cross-Border Healthcare

Digital Health

Digital health literacy (or eHealth literacy)

Fulfilment of a product, process, or service of specified requirements

A framework that allows eHealth solutions to be tested for their conformity with a selected set of eHealth standards and profiles 

Efficient, effective, ethical care delivered through interaction, integration, co-ordination and sharing of information between different healthcare actors over time.

ISO/DIS 27269:2024, EN ISO/HL7 10781:2023 

EURO-CAS 

ISO/FDIS 27269

Conformity in fulfilling official such as regulatory requirements

Merriam-Webster dictionary, refined

ISO 37301 refinements: outcome of meeting all the organization’s obligations set by legislation and government agencies; adherence of a product, service, or process to legal and regulatory requirements, fulfilling legislative and contractual requirements.

‘Cross-border healthcare’ means healthcare provided or prescribed in a Member State other than the Member State of affiiation;

Digital health is the field of knowledge and practice associated with the development and use of digital technologies to improve health. Digital health expands the concept of eHealth to include digital consumers, with a wider range of smart devices and connected equipment. The following areas are commonly understood as being part of, or related to, digital health: artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, health data, health information systems, the infodemic, the Internet of Things, interoperability and telemedicine.

Digital health literacy is the ability to search for, access, understand, appraise, validate, and apply online health information, and to formulate and express questions, opinion, thoughts, or feelings when using digital devices.” This concept relates strongly to the frequency with which people use differ-ent health resources from digital sources and resources such as online video consultations, digital per-sonal health records, social media, health related apps, etc.

Discharge Letter  

eHealth 

Discharge Report, hospital discharge report, hospital discharge summary

  1. Electronic health data related to a healthcare encounter or episode of care and including essential information about admission, treatment and discharge of a natural person.  

  1. Hospital discharge summaries serve as the primary documents communicating a patient’s care plan to the post-hospital care team. Often, the discharge summary is the only form of communication that accompanies the patient to the next setting of care. It is a report which encompasses a summary of events occurred during a hospital encounter usually manifesting as a hospital admission, stay and discharge, and including communication of a care plan. For a more detailed list of elements, please refer to the dataset (Chapter 4). 

1) eHealth is the use of ICT in health products, services and processes combined with organisational change in healthcare systems and new skills, in order to improve health of citizens, efficiency and productivity in healthcare delivery, and the economic and social value of health. 

2) WHO definition: cost-effective and secure use of information and communications technologies in support of health and health-related fields, including health-care services, health surveillance, health literature, and health education, knowledge and research.

Electronic Health Record

EHR

Electronic health record means a collection of electronic health data related to a natural person and collected in the health system, processed for healthcare purposes. 

Electronic Health Record System

EHR System

EHR system (electronic health record system) means any system where the appliance or software allows to store, intermediate, export, import, convert, edit or view personal electronic health data that belongs to the priority categories of personal electronic health data as referred to in Article 5(1) of this Regulation and is intended by the manufacturer to be used by healthcare providers in providing patient care or by patient to access to their health data; 

Electronic Identification

eID

The process of using person identification data in electronic form uniquely representing either a natural or legal person, or a natural person representing a legal person. 

Electronic Prescription

ePrescription

(1)    A medicinal prescription issued and transmitted electronically. 

(2)    Medical prescription, provided in electronic format: "A prescription is understood as a set of data like drug ID, drug name, strength, form, dosage, indication or as a list of drugs together covering the patients current medication. The data set might differ slightly between the countries.“ In the context of eHealth DSI, this definition of ePrescription data will apply. However, it is not excluded that the use of the infrastructure and the service developed in eHealth DSI might be afterwards extended to handle ePrescription data different from medicinal prescriptions. 

ePrescription service 

The concept of the ePrescription service is understood as the ordering of a prescription in software, the electronic transmission of that prescription from the Prescription provider to a Dispense provider, the electronic dispensing of the medicine and the electronic transmission of the dispensed medicine information from the dispenser provider to the prescription provider. 

The ePrescription service is made up of electronic prescribing and electronic dispensing: 

  • ePrescribing is defined as prescribing of medicines in software by a health care professional legally authorized to do so, for dispensing once it has been 

  • electronically transmitted, at the pharmacy. 

  • eDispensing is defined as the act of electronically retrieving a prescription and giving out the medicine to the patient as indicated in the corresponding ePrescription. Once the medicine is dispensed, the dispenser shall report via software the information about the dispensed medicine(s).

1) European Commission - Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Health Data Space 

​

2) Kind AJH, Smith MA. Documentation of Mandated Discharge Summary Components in Transitions from Acute to Subacute Care. In: Henriksen K, Battles JB, Keyes MA, et al., editors. Advances in Patient Safety:

New Directions and Alternative Approaches (Vol. 2: Culture and Redesign). Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2008 Aug. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK43715/

Source (1): Commission Recommendation 2008/594/EC on cross-border interoperability of electronic health records - Point 3(f), PS/eP guidelines 

 

Source (2): Identity Management in MyHealth@EU 

 

​

European Electronic Health Record Exchange Format

EEHRxF

The Commission Recommendation on a European Electronic Health Record exchange format of 6. February 2019 sets out a framework for the development of a European electronic health record exchange format in order to achieve secure, interoperable, cross-border access to, and exchange of, electronic health data in the Union. 

European Health Data Space

EHDS

The creation of a European Data Space is one of the priorities of the Commission 2019-2025, including the health sector. In the Communication on “A European strategy for data” it states that the Commission will support the establishment of nine common European data spaces with one of them being the Common European health data space, which is essential for advances in preventing, detecting and curing diseases as well as for informed, evidence-based decisions to improve the accessibility, effectiveness and sustainability of the healthcare systems. It is a health-specific data sharing framework establishing clear rules, common standards and practices, digital infrastructures and a governance framework for the use of electronic health data by patients and for research, innovation, policy making, patient safety, statistics or regulatory purposes.

Functional profile 

Subset of comprehensive list of functional and data requirements reflecting the purpose of certain EHR systems or a specific healthcare delivery setting.

EN ISO/HL7 10781:2023, adapted 

One system may conform to several functional profiles

Healthcare 

  1. Care activities, services, management or supplies related to the health of an individual. 

  1. Healthcare means health services provided by health professionals to patients to assess, maintain or restore their state of health, including the prescription, dispensation and provision of medicinal products and medical devices. 

Note 1: Includes any: a) preventative, diagnostic, therapeutic, rehabilitative, maintenance, or palliative care, counselling, service, or procedure with respect to the physical or mental condition, or functional status, of a patient or affecting the structure or function of the body; b) sale or dispensing of a drug, device, equipment, or other item pursuant to a prescription; or c) procurement or banking of blood, sperm, organs, or any other tissue for administration to patients. 

Note 2: Healthcare may also include the management of clinical knowledge.

Health Professional 

Health professional means a doctor of medicine, a nurse responsible for general care, a dental practitioner, a midwife or a pharmacist within the meaning of Directive 2005/36/EC, or another professional exercising activities in the healthcare sector which are restricted to a regulated profession as defined in Article 3(1)(a) of Directive 2005/36/EC, or a person considered to be a health professional according to the legislation of the Member State of treatment.

Healthcare Provider

care provider,
health provider,
health service provider,
healthcare service provider

Definition 1: Healthcare actor that is able to be assigned one or more care period mandates
Definition 2: ‘healthcare provider’ means any natural or legal person or any other entity legally providing healthcare on the territory of a Member State; 
Source: Directive 2011/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2011 on the application of patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare.

Notes Definition 1: 
Note 1: Healthcare Provider is described in the Attribute Collection HEALTHCARE PROVIDER 

Note 2: The personnel of a healthcare organization that is a healthcare provider may include both healthcare professionals and others which participate in the provision of healthcare. 
Note 3: According to the definition in ISO 13940:2015, organizations solely responsible for the funding, payment, or reimbursement of healthcare provision are not healthcare providers; for the purpose of this International Standard they are considered as healthcare third parties. 

Imaging Report 

An imaging report reflects the observations and interpretations of one or more imaging studies. It usually contains elements such as the reason why the study is requested, relevant contextual medical information, the used modality and its settings, procedures and body localisations that were used, a description of the observations and findings, exposure information, conclusion and advice.

Imaging Study 

An imaging study comprises a set of objects, including images and other objects, that were made for a specific purpose and usually in response to a request from a healthcare provider. The Imaging Study does not include the Imaging Report as defined in this guideline. 

International Patient Summary Data Set

IPS Data Set

IPS Dataset

Minimal, non-exhaustive set of data elements required for the international patient summary.

 

Note 1: ‘Minimal’ and ‘Non-exhaustive’ criteria are derived from the eHN Guideline for the patient summary. 

Note 2: ‘Minimal’ reflects the ideas of ‘summary’ and the need to be concise, but also alludes to the existence of a core set of data elements that all health care professionals can use; it is intended to be a speciality agnostic and condition independent set.  It does not imply that all the items in the data set will be used in every summary. It is also possible to refine the extract from a record 

such that the content of the summary is more relevant to a particular condition (e.g. asthma) but no asthma-specific elements will be specified in this standard.  The IPS Document or IPS can be extended by non-IPS standard condition-specific data. 

Note 3 to entry: ‘Non-exhaustive’ recognizes that the ideal data set is not closed, and is likely to be extended, not just in terms of requirement evolution, but also pragmatically in instances of use.  However, such data are outside the scope of this current standard until review. 

Note 4 to entry: The initial focus of use for IPS is unscheduled care but the IPS can also be used within scheduled care scenarios; scheduled care or planned care, would probably have access to the full EHR and provide a more extensive set of data but would also include the IPS Data Set elements.

Interoperability 

Interoperability’ means the ability of organisations as well as software applications or devices from the same manufacturer or different manufacturers to interact, involving the exchange of information and knowledge without changing the content of the data between these organisations, software applications or devices, through the processes they support.

Member State of affiliation

‘Member State of affiliation’ means: 

(i), for persons referred to in point (b)(i), the Member State that is competent to grant to the insured person a prior authorisation to receive appropriate treatment outside the Member State of residence according to Regulations (EC) No 883/2004 and (EC) No 987/2009; 

 

(ii), for persons referred to in point (b)(ii), the Member State that is competent to grant to the insured person a prior authorisation to receive appropriate treatment in another Member State according to Regulation (EC) No 859/2003 or Regulation (EU) No 1231/2010. If no Member State is competent according to those Regulations, the Member State of affiliation shall be the Member State where the person is insured or has the rights to sickness benefits according to the legislation of that Member State. 

Member State of treatment

‘Member State of treatment’ means the Member State on whose territory healthcare is actually provided to the patient. In the case of telemedicine, healthcare is considered to be provided in the Member State where the healthcare provider is established.

Medical imaging  

​Medical imaging refers to technologies and processes used to create images of the human body for clinical analysis, diagnostic and treatment purposes. It encompasses many different purposes, techniques, specialties and procedures.

​

Metadata 

Information that is given to describe or help you use other information. Metadata are information parameters that provide contextual information about the actual information within a document (or other information container). Examples are: date of event and/or publication, size in bytes, technical format, template, standard version, document version, author specialty, functional category et cetera. 

Mobile Health 

mHealth 

Mobile wireless technologies for public health 

Non-personal electronic health data

Non-personal electronic health data means electronic health data other than 

personal electronic health data, encompassing both data that has been 

anonymised so that it no longer relates to an identified or identifiable natural person and data that has never related to a data subject. 

Patient Summary 

PS, health summary record 

  1. Health record extract comprising a standardized collection of clinical and contextual information (retrospective, concurrent, prospective) that provides a snapshot in time of a subject of care’s health information and healthcare. 

 

  1. is an identifiable dataset of essential and understandable health information that includes the most important clinical facts required to ensure safe and secure healthcare. This summarised version of the patient's medical data gives health professionals the essential information they need to provide care. Although this dataset is intended to aid health professionals in providing unscheduled care, it can also be used to provide planned medical care (e.g. in the case of citizens movements or cross-organisational care paths). It should be kept in mind that not all information is known or is available at the moment of creation of the Patient Summary document.

Personal elecotronic health data 

Personal electronic health data means data concerning health and genetic data as defined in Article 4, points (13) and (15), of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, processed in an electronic form.

Point of Care

PoC

Location where direct healthcare activities are performed.

Prescription 

Prescription means a prescription for a medicinal product or for a medical device issued by a member of a regulated health profession within the meaning of Article 3(1)(a) of Directive 2005/36/EC who is legally entitled to do so in the Member State in which the prescription is issued. 

Primary use of electronic health data

Primary use of electronic health data means the processing of electronic health data for the provision of healthcare to assess, maintain or restore the state of health of the natural person to whom that data relates, including the prescription, dispensation and provision of medicinal products and medical devices, as well as for relevant social, administrative or reimbursement services. 

Refined eHealth European interoperability framework

ReEIF

The refined eHealth European interoperability framework (ReEIF) was adopted by the eHealth Network in November 2015. It represents a common refined framework for managing interoperability and standardisation challenges in the eHealth domain in Europe, offering a framework of terms and methodologies for reaching a common language, and a common starting point for the analysis of problems and the description of eHealth solutions throughout Europe.

Secondary use of electronic health data

Secondary use of electronic health data means the processing of electronic health data for purposes set out in Chapter IV of this Regulation, other than the initial purposes for which they were collected or produced

Telehealth

Telehealth is a subset of eHealth and refers to the delivery of healthcare at a distance – according to Greek language, prefix “tele” means “far” or “at distance”, as explained by Varnosafaderani. 
It comprehends the delivery of healthcare services by all healthcare professionals, where distance is a critical factor, through the use of ICT to provide clinical and non-clinical services - preventative, promotive and curative healthcare services, research and evaluation, health administration services and continuing education of healthcare providers.  
Telehealth is a newer and broader term referring to remote healthcare, including services provided using telemedicine, as well as interaction with automated systems or information resources.

​​

​

​

Telemedicine

Telemedicine is a subset of telehealth, as concluded by Sood et al. in a 2007 study after analyzing 104 peer-reviewed definitions of telemedicine. Although some authors inadequately use it to describe the delivery of healthcare services at a distance only by physicians, telemedicine is distinguished from telehealth in the sense that the former focuses on the curative scope of the healthcare services by all healthcare professionals, excluding therefore the preventive and promotive aspects of healthcare as remote training, administrative and educational services.  
According to Bashshur, Telemedicine involves the use of modern information technology, especially two-way interactive audio/video communications, computers and telemetry to deliver health services to remote patients and to facilitate information exchange between primary care physicians and specialists at some distance from each other (Bashshur, et al., 1997). 

Unscheduled Care

unanticipated care,

unplanned care

Healthcare service for an unexpected demand for care.

Note 1:  In this scenario, the assistance needed can be emergency or non-emergency. 

Note 2: The International Patient Summary is presumed to be the information needed to quickly help advise, diagnose, and/or treat the person requiring assistance.

Wellness application

Wellness application means any appliance or software intended by the manufacturer to be used by a natural person for processing electronic health data for other purposes than healthcare, such as well-being and pursuing healthy life-styles;

X-eHealth Acronyms List

The following list presents relevant acronyms in the X-eHealth project

Acronym

ATC

CBeHIS

CDA

CEF

CEN

CEN IPS

CEN/TC 251

CIA

CT

DG CNECT 

DG SANTE 

DICOM 

DSI

eDispensation

EEHRxF

eEIF

EHDS

eHDSI / eHealth DSI

eHealth 

eHMSEG 

eHN 

eHN SG on Semantics 

eHN SG on TechIOP 

EHR

EHRxF

eID

EIF

EMA

EMA SPOR

EN

eP /ePrescription

epSOS

e-SENS

EU

EURO-CAS

EVS Client

EXPAND

FAQs

FHIR

FHIR IG

FSH

GDPR

GP

H2020

HaDEA

HL7

HL7 CDA

HL7 FHIR

ICD-10

ICD-11

ICD-O-3

ICF

ICT

IHE

IHE PCC

IHE XDS

IHE XDS-I

IHE XCA

IHE XCA-I

IHE XDR

IHE XDR-I

IHE MHD

IHE XDM

IHTSDO

IPI

IPS

ISMS

ISO

ISO-IDMP

IT

ITIL

JA

JIC

JIC PSSS

JSON

KPI's

LOINC

LSP

mHealth

MTC

MVC

NCP

NCPeH

NHS

OASIS TALM

OSI

PHIRI

PS

QM

ReEIF

SNOMED CT

SOA

SUT

TEHDaS

TEN-T

TEN-T EA

UML

UNICOM

WP

XML

X-eHealth

XpandDH

xShare

Xt-EHR JA

Term

Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Code

Cross Border eHealth Information Services

Clinical Document Architecture

Connecting Europe Facility

Comité Européen de Normalization (European Committee for Standardization, a federation of 34 national standards bodies that are also ISO member bodies)

CEN International Patient Summary

CEN Technical Committee 251 Health Informatics

Confidentiality, Integrity and Accountability

Clinical Terminologies 

Directorate‑General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology

Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety 

Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine

Digital Service Infrastructure

Electronic Dispensation

eHealth European Interoperability Framework

eHealth Digital Service Infrastructure

Electronic Health

EHealth Network Subgroup on Technical Interoperability 

Electronic Health Record

Electronic Health Record Exchange Format

European Interoperability Framework

European Medicines Agency 

EU Telematics Regulatory Network - Substances Products Organisations Referentials  

European Standard

Electronic Prescription

Smart Open Services for European Patients

Electronic Simple European Networked Services (project)

European Union

Conformity Assessment Scheme for Europe

External Validator Service Client

Expanding Health Data Interoperability Services

Frequently Asked Questions

Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources

FHIR Implementation Guide

FHIR SHortland files

General Data Protection Regulation

General Practitioner

Horizon 2020 Programme 

European Health and Digital Executive Agency 

Health Level 7 

HL7 Clinical Document Architecture 

HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources 

10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 

11th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 

International Classification of Diseases for Oncology, third edition 

International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health 

Information and communications technology

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise

IHE Patient Care Coordination

IHE Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing

IHE Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing for Imaging

IHE Cross Community Access

IHE Cross Community Access for Imaging

IHE Cross-Enterprise Document Reliable Interchange

IHE Cross-Enterprise Document Reliable Interchange for Imaging

IHE Mobile access to Health Documents

IHE Cross-Enterprise Document Media Interchange

International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation

International Projects and Interoperability

International Patient Summary

Information Security Management System

International Organization for Standardization

IDentification of Medicinal Products 

Information Technology

Information Technology Infrastructure Library

Joint Action

Joint Initiative Council

JIC Patient Summary Standards Set

JavaScript Object Notation

Key Performance Indicators

Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes

Large Scale Pilot

Master Translation/Transcodification Catalogue

Model-View-Controller 

National Contact Point

National Contact Point for eHealth

National Health Service

OASIS Test Assertion Markup Language

Operations, Security and Infrastructure

Population Health Information Research Infrastruture Project

Patient Summary

Quality Management 

Refined eHealth EIF 

Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms 

Service-Oriented Architecture 

System Under Test 

(Joint Action)Towards the European Health Data Space 

Trans-European Transport Network 

Trans-European Transport Network Executive Agency 

Unified Markup Language 

EU Project focusing on the implementation of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) suite of IDMP (IDentification of Medicinal Products) standards 

Work Package 

EXtensible Markup Language 

eXchanging electronic Health Records in a commom framework (project) 

Expanding Digital Health through a pan-European EHRxF-based Ecosystem (project) 

Expanding the European EHRxF to share and effectively use health data within the EHDS (project) 

Extended Electronic Health Record Joint Action 

*Status 16.07.2024

Catalogue

We recommend to consult the following glossaries for supplementary reading:

Picture1.png
Picture2.png
Picture3.png
Picture4.png
Picture5.png

The following criteria were defined by the project team for including a glossary in the eHealth glossaries catalogue:

  • The glossary provides concepts/abbreviations commonly encountered in eHealth

  • The glossary is publicly available in an online accessible format

  • Concepts and the glossary itself are available in English language

  • It is preferably clear how the glossary was developed

  • EU scope

bottom of page