Health & Biotech terms
25 Health & Biotech terms explained in plain English.
- AI medical scribeAn AI medical scribe, also called ambient clinical documentation, listens to the conversation between a clinician and patient, with consent, and drafts the visit note automatically using speech recognition and large language models.
- AlphaFoldAlphaFold is an artificial intelligence system from Google DeepMind that predicts the 3D shape of proteins from their amino acid sequences, a problem biologists had worked on for 50 years.
- Clinical decision support (CDS)Clinical decision support (CDS) is technology that gives clinicians relevant information or recommendations at the moment they make decisions: a warning about a dangerous drug interaction, a reminder that a patient is due for screening, or an AI alert predicting sepsis.
- Continuous glucose monitor (CGM)A continuous glucose monitor (CGM) is a small sensor worn on the skin, usually on the arm or belly, that measures glucose levels in the fluid under the skin every few minutes, day and night.
- CRISPRCRISPR is a gene-editing technology that lets scientists find a specific spot in DNA and cut or change it, using a guide molecule and an enzyme such as Cas9.
- DICOMDICOM (Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine) is the international standard for medical images and related information.
- Digital therapeutics (DTx)Digital therapeutics (DTx) are software programs, usually apps, that treat or manage a medical condition and are backed by clinical evidence, sometimes requiring regulatory approval and a prescription.
- Electronic Health RecordAn Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a digital version of a patient's medical chart, containing diagnoses, medications, allergies, lab results, visit notes, and imaging records.
- Health Canada medical device classesHealth Canada sorts medical devices into four classes based on risk, from Class I (lowest, like bandages and tongue depressors) to Class IV (highest, like pacemakers and heart valves).
- Health information exchange (HIE)A health information exchange (HIE) is a system or network that lets different healthcare organizations share patient information electronically: lab results, medication lists, hospital discharge summaries, and imaging reports.
- HealthTechHealthTech (health technology) encompasses all technology applied to healthcare: electronic health records (EHR), telemedicine platforms, health monitoring wearables, AI diagnostic tools, hospital information systems, pharmacy management software, and patient-facing apps.
- HL7 FHIRHL7 FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, pronounced 'fire') is a standard for exchanging health information between systems using modern web technology.
- Liquid biopsyA liquid biopsy is a test that looks for signs of cancer, such as fragments of tumour DNA, in a blood sample rather than in tissue removed by surgery or a needle.
- mRNA vaccine technologymRNA vaccine technology delivers messenger RNA, a temporary set of instructions, into cells so they briefly produce a harmless protein, like part of a virus, that trains the immune system to recognize the real threat.
- Next-generation sequencing (NGS)Next-generation sequencing (NGS) refers to technologies that read the order of DNA letters in millions of fragments at the same time, rather than one fragment at a time.
- Organ-on-a-chipAn organ-on-a-chip is a small device, often about the size of a USB stick, containing tiny channels lined with living human cells that mimic how an organ such as a lung, liver, or gut works.
- PACS (picture archiving and communication system)A PACS (picture archiving and communication system) is the hospital system that stores medical images, such as X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs, and lets radiologists and other clinicians view them on screens anywhere in the organization.
- PharmacogenomicsPharmacogenomics is the study of how a person's genes affect the way they respond to medications, from how fast they break a drug down to whether they're at risk of a serious reaction.
- PHIPA (Personal Health Information Protection Act)PHIPA, Ontario's Personal Health Information Protection Act, sets rules for how health information custodians, such as doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, and labs, collect, use, disclose, and protect personal health information.
- Polygenic risk score (PRS)A polygenic risk score (PRS) estimates a person's inherited risk for a common disease, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, or breast cancer, by adding up the small effects of thousands or even millions of genetic variants.
- Precision medicinePrecision medicine is an approach to healthcare that tailors prevention, diagnosis, and treatment to individual differences in genes, biology, environment, and lifestyle.
- Real-world evidence (RWE)Real-world evidence (RWE) is clinical evidence about how medical products work in practice, drawn from real-world data such as electronic health records, insurance claims, registries, and wearable devices, rather than from tightly controlled clinical trials.
- Remote patient monitoring (RPM)Remote patient monitoring (RPM) uses connected devices, such as blood pressure cuffs, scales, pulse oximeters, and glucose monitors, to send patients' health readings from home to their care team.
- Software as a medical device (SaMD)Software as a medical device (SaMD) is software intended to diagnose, prevent, monitor, or treat a medical condition without being part of a physical medical device.
- TelemedicineTelemedicine (also called telehealth) allows patients to consult with healthcare providers through video calls, phone calls, or secure messaging instead of in-person visits.