Glossary
b
- 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. Definition Source European Read More
c
- Compliance – Conformity in fulfilling official such as regulatory requirements. Definition Source Merriam-Webster dictionary, refined Note 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. Read More
- Conformity Assessment Scheme – A framework that allows eHealth solutions to be tested for their conformity with a selected set of eHealth standards and profiles Definition Source EURO-CAS Read More
- Conformity, Conformance – Fulfilment of a product, process, or service of specified requirements. Definition Source ISO/DIS 27269:2024, EN, ISO/HL7 10781:2023 Read More
- Continuity of Care – Efficient, effective, ethical care delivered through interaction, integration, co-ordination and sharing of information between different healthcare actors over time. Definition Source ISO/FDIS 27269 Read More
- Cross – Border Healthcare – ‘Cross-border healthcare’ means healthcare provided or prescribed in a Member State other than the Member State of affiiation; Definition 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 Read More
d
- Digital Health – 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 Read More
- Digital health literacy (or eHealth literacy) – 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, Read More
- Discharge Letter – 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. 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 Read More
e
- eHealth – 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 Read More
- Electronic Health Record – 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. Acronym / Synonym EHR Definition Source Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Health Data Space Read More
- Electronic Health Record 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 Read More
- Electronic Identification – 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. Acronym / Synonym eID Definition Source Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 (eIDAS) Read More
- Electronic Prescription – (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 Read More
- 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 Read More
- European Electronic Health Record Exchange Format – 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. Acronym / Synonym EEHRxF Definition Source Commission Recommendation on a European Electronic Read More
- European Health Data Space – 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 Read More
f
- Functional profile – Subset of comprehensive list of functional and data requirements reflecting the purpose of certain EHR systems or a specific healthcare delivery setting. Definition Source EN ISO/HL7 10781:2023, adapted Note One system may conform to several functional profiles Read More
h
- 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 Read More
- Healthcare – Care activities, services, management or supplies related to the health of an individual. 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. Definition Source ISO 27269 Directive 2011/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 Read More
- Healthcare Provider – Definition 1: Healthcare actor that is able to be assigned one or more care period mandatesDefinition 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 Read More
i
- 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. Definition Source eHealth Network Read More
- 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. Definition Source eHealth Network Guideline on the electronic exchange of health data under Cross-Border Directive Read More
- Interantional Patient Summary Data Set – Minimal, non-exhaustive set of data elements required for the international patient summary. Acronym / Synonym IPS Data Set IPS Dataset Definition Source ISO/FDIS 27269, 3.8.3.3 Note 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 Read More
- 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. Definition Source Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council Read More
m
- 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. Definition Source eHealth Network Guideline on the electronic exchange of health data under Cross-Border Directive 2011/24/EU Read More
- 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 Read More
- 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. Definition Source Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on the European Health Data Space Read More
- 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. Definition Source Guideline on the electronic Read More
- Mobile Health – Mobile wireless technologies for public health Acronym / Synonym mHealth Definition Source WHO. mHealth, use of appropriate digital technologies for public health- Report by the Director- General Read More
n
- 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. Definition Source Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on the European Health Data Space Read More
p
- Patient Summary – 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. 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 Read More
- Personal electronic 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. Definition Source Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on the European Health Data Space Read More
- Point of Care – Location where direct healthcare activities are performed. Acronym / Synonym PoC Definition Source ISO 13940:2015, 7.2.9.1 Read More
- 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. Definition Source Directive 2011/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council Read More
- 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. Definition Source Read More
r
- Refined eHealth European interoperability framework – 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 Read More
s
- 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 Definition Source Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on the European Health Data Space Read More
t
- 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 – Read More
- 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 Read More
u
- Unscheduled Care – Healthcare service for an unexpected demand for care. Acronym / Synonym unanticipated care, unplanned care Definition Source ISO/FDIS 27269 Note 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. Read More
w
- 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; Definition Source Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Health Data Space Read More
Acronyms
| Acronym | Description |
|---|---|
| ATC | Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Code |
| CBeHIS | Cross Border eHealth Information Services |
| CDA | Clinical Document Architecture |
| CEF | Connecting Europe Facility |
| CEN IPS | CEN International Patient Summary |
| CEN | Comité Européen de Normalization (European Committee for Standardization, a federation of 34 national standards bodies that are also ISO member bodies) |
| CEN/TC 251 | CEN Technical Committee 251 Health Informatics |
| CIA | Confidentiality, Integrity and Accountability |
| CT | Clinical Terminologies |
| DG CNECT | Directorate‑General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology |
| DG SANTE | Directorate,General for Health and Food Safety |
| DICOM | Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine |
| DSI | Digital Service Infrastructure |
| eDispensation | Electronic Dispensation |
| EEHRxF | European Electronic Health Record Exchange Format |
| eEIF | eHealth European Interoperability Framework |
| EHDS | European Health Data Space |
| eHDSI / eHealth DSI | eHealth Digital Service Infrastructure |
| eHealth | Electronic Health |
| eHMSEG | eHealth Member States Experts Group |
| eHN SG on Semantics | eHealth Network Subgroup on Semantic |
| eHN SG on TechlOP | EHealth Network Subgroup on Technical Interoperability |
| eHN | eHealth Network |
| EHR | Electronic Health Record |
| EHRxF | Electronic Health Record Exchange Format |
| eID | Electronic Identification |
| EIF | European Interoperability Framework |
| EMA SPOR | EU Telematics Regulatory Network |
| EMA | European Medicines Agency Substances Products Organisations Referentials |
| EN | European Standard |
| eP / ePrescription | Electronic Prescription |
| epSOS | Smart Open Services for European Patients |
| e-SENS | Electronic Simple European Networked Services (project) |
| EU | European Union Conformity Assessment Scheme for Europe |
| EURO – CAS | Conformity Assessment Scheme for Europe |
| EVS Client | External Validator Service Client |
| EXPAND | Expanding Health Data Interoperability Services |
| FAQs | Frequently Asked Questions |
| FHIR IG | Excerpt about FHIR IG |
| FHIR | Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources |
| FSH | FHIR SHortland files |
| GDPR | General Data Protection Regulation |
| GP | General Practitioner |
| H2020 | Horizon 2020 Programme |
| HaDEA | European Health and Digital Executive Agency |
| HL7 CDA | HL7 Clinical Document Architecture |
| HL7 FHIR | HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources |
| HL7 | Health Level 7 |
| ICD-10 | 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems |
| ICD-11 | 11th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems |
| ICD-O-3 | International Classification of Diseases for Oncology, third edition |
| ICF | International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health |
| ICT | Information and communications technology |
| IHE MHD | IHE Mobile access to Health Documents |
| IHE PCC | IHE Patient Care Coordination |
| IHE XCA | IHE Cross Community Access |
| IHE XCA-I | IHE Cross Community Access for Imaging |
| IHE XDM | IHE Cross,Enterprise Document Media Interchange |
| IHE XDR | IHE Cross,Enterprise Document Reliable Interchange |
| IHE XDR-I | IHE Cross,Enterprise Document Reliable Interchange for Imaging |
| IHE XDS +A64:B104 | IHE Cross,Enterprise Document Sharing |
| IHE XDS-I | IHE Cross,Enterprise Document Sharing for Imaging |
| IHE | Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise |
| IHTSDO | International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation |
| IPI | International Projects and Interoperability |
| IPS | International Patient Summary |
| ISMS | Information Security Management System |
| ISO | International Organization for Standardization |
| ISO-IDMP | IDentification of Medicinal Products |
| IT | Information Technology |
| ITIL | Term Information Technology Infrastructure Library |
| JA | Joint Action |
| JIC PSSS | JIC Patient Summary Standards Set |
| JIC | Joint Initiative Council |
| JSON | JavaScript Object Notation |
| KPI’s | Key Performance Indicators |
| LOINC | Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes |
| LSP | Large Scale Pilot |
| mHealth | Mobile Health |
| MTC | Master Translation/Transcodification Catalogue |
| MVC | Model,View,Controller |
| NCP | National Contact Point |
| NCPeH | National Contact Point for eHealth |
| NHS | National Health Service |
| OASIS TALM | OASIS Test Assertion Markup Language |
| OSI | Operations, Security and Infrastructure |
| PHIRI | Population Health Information Research Infrastruture Project |
| PS | Patient Summary |
| QM | Quality Management |
| ReEIF | Refined eHealth EIF |
| SNOMED CT | Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms |
| SOA | Service,Oriented Architecture |
| SUT | System Under Test |
| TEHDaS | (Joint Action)Towards the European Health Data Space |
| TEN-T EA | Trans,European Transport Network Executive Agency |
| TEN-T | Trans,European Transport Network |
| UML | Unified Markup Language |
| UNICOM | EU Project focusing on the implementation of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) suite of IDMP (IDentification of Medicinal Products) standards |
| WP | Work Package |
| X-eHealth | eXchanging electronic Health Records in a commom framework (project) |
| XML | EXtensible Markup Language |
| XpandDH | Expanding Digital Health through a pan-European EHRxF-based Ecosystem (project) |
| xShare | Expanding the European EHRxF to share and effectively use health data within the EHDS (project) |
| Xt-EHR JA | Extended Electronic Health Record Joint Action |
Catalogue
We recommend to consult the following glossaries for supplementary reading:
MyHealth@EU glossary established and maintained by the European Commission. Available with Log-In under https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/fpfis/wikis/pages/viewpage.action?spaceKey=EHDSI&title=MyHealth@EU+Glossary
The ISO online browsing platform provides access to the most up to date content in ISO standards, graphical symbols, codes or terms and definitions and is available under https://www.iso.org/obp/ui#home
Contsys provides a comprehensive list of concepts related to the continuity of care by Oughtibridge Ltd. under https://contsys.org/index
The TEHDAS1 Joint Action developed European principles for the secondary use of health data in 2021–2023. The project team has developed a glossary which is available under https://tehdas.eu/app/uploads/2022/01/tehdas-glossary.pdf
To establish a common understanding the X-eHealth project team established, maintained and updated two glossary types in the course of the project: A project internal glossary with a more comprehensive collection of concepts and acronyms and a public glossary with key concepts and acronyms ensuring a public understanding of X-eHealth’s work. The X-eHealth glossary laid the foundation for the Xt-EHR glossary. It can be found under: https://zenodo.org/records/7896165
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