Reference

Telemedicine glossary

120+ terms with crisp, cited definitions, aliases, and cross-references to deep-dive articles. From HIPAA, BAAs, and PHI to FHIR, SMART on FHIR, WebRTC, EPCS, and WCAG 2.1 AA — every compliance rule, interoperability standard, and clinical-video concept in one place. Search by name, filter by chapter, or jump straight to a letter.

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Digital therapeutics (DTx)

Software that itself delivers a clinical intervention, such as prescribed CBT for insomnia. Unlike wellness apps, DTx products typically follow a regulated medical-device path.

D

Distant site

Medicare's term for where the billing practitioner is located during a telehealth visit — the mirror of the originating site, where the patient is.

D

DTC telehealth

Direct-to-consumer telehealth, where the patient buys the visit. Fast onboarding and payments dominate the design; EHR integration is often optional.

D



DTLS-SRTP

The encryption used by WebRTC for real-time media — DTLS negotiates keys, SRTP encrypts the audio and video.

D



E2EE (end-to-end encryption)

Encryption where only the endpoints can decrypt the media; conflicts with server-side recording, transcription, and AI.

E



EHR (Electronic Health Record)

The system of record for a patient's longitudinal health data across providers; integrating with it is core to a telehealth product.

E

Eligibility check (270/271)

The X12 transaction pair that asks a payer whether a patient is covered — run before the visit to avoid surprise bills.

E



EMR (Electronic Medical Record)

A single clinic or practice's digital chart; narrower than an EHR, which spans organizations.

E



Encryption at rest

Protecting stored data — recordings, databases, files — so it is unreadable if storage is accessed without keys.

E



Encryption in transit

Protecting data while it moves over a network — DTLS-SRTP for media, TLS for signaling and APIs.

E



EPCS

Electronic Prescribing of Controlled Substances — a regulated path requiring identity proofing and two-factor authentication.

E

Expert Determination

The second HIPAA de-identification path — a qualified expert documents that re-identification risk is very small (45 CFR §164.514(b)(1)).

E



FHIR

The modern HL7 API standard for exchanging healthcare data over REST; the basis of most new EHR integrations.

F

FTC Health Breach Notification Rule

The FTC rule (16 CFR Part 318, strengthened in 2024) covering consumer health apps outside HIPAA — breach-notification duties for non-covered entities.

F

GDPR

The EU data-protection regulation (2016/679). Health data is a special category under Article 9; for EU users it applies alongside, not instead of, HIPAA.

G

Graceful degradation

The design rule that a clinical call sheds quality before it drops — lower resolution, then audio-only, then reconnect with session state intact.

G

Hallucination (AI)

A fluent but false model output. In clinical documentation it is a safety defect — mitigated by grounding (RAG) and mandatory human review.

H



HIPAA

The US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — the law governing how patient health data must be protected.

H

HIPAA Omnibus Rule

The 2013 final rule implementing HITECH — extending direct HIPAA liability to business associates and their subcontractors via downstream BAAs.

H



HIPAA Privacy Rule

The HIPAA rule governing who may access and disclose PHI and under what conditions.

H



HIPAA Security Rule

The HIPAA rule defining technical, physical, and administrative safeguards for electronic PHI; substantially strengthened in the 2026 update.

H

HITECH Act

The 2009 law that funded EHR adoption and strengthened HIPAA — breach notification, direct liability for business associates, higher penalty tiers.

H

HITRUST

A certifiable security framework bundling HIPAA-aligned controls; hospital procurement often asks vendors for it by name.

H



HL7

The family of healthcare data-exchange standards; HL7 v2 is the legacy messaging format still widely deployed.

H

HL7 v2

The veteran healthcare messaging standard — pipe-delimited ADT, ORM, and ORU feeds still running most hospital interfaces.

H

Hospital-at-home

Acute, inpatient-level care delivered in the patient's home with RPM, scheduled visits, and rapid escalation — enabled in the US by CMS waivers.

H

Human-in-the-loop

The design where a clinician reviews and signs AI output before it enters the record — the practical safety layer for clinical AI features.

H



IAL / AAL

NIST identity-assurance (IAL) and authenticator-assurance (AAL) levels; how strongly a user's identity and login are verified.

I



ICE

The framework that tries every possible connection path in parallel and picks the one that works; key to reconnection.

I

Incident response

The rehearsed plan for security events — detect, contain, assess whether PHI was compromised, and start the breach-notification clock if it was.

I

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