HealthTech Glossary
A practical glossary of core terms in digital health, bioinformatics, clinical systems, data governance, and AI-enabled healthcare.
This glossary is designed for students, health professionals, digital health practitioners, and innovation-focused organisations seeking a concise reference point.
AI Governance
The policies, oversight mechanisms, and accountability structures used to ensure artificial intelligence systems are safe, fair, explainable, and responsibly deployed in healthcare settings.
Algorithmic Bias
Systematic error in an algorithm that produces unfair or distorted outcomes, often arising from unrepresentative data, flawed assumptions, or poorly designed modelling processes.
Bioinformatics
An interdisciplinary field that uses computation, statistics, and data science to analyse biological and medical data such as genomic sequences, transcriptomics, and molecular interactions.
CDS (Clinical Decision Support)
Digital tools that provide clinicians with knowledge, alerts, recommendations, or diagnostic support to improve decision-making at the point of care.
Clinical Validation
The process of demonstrating that a digital health tool or algorithm performs reliably and meaningfully in real clinical settings, not merely under laboratory or developmental conditions.
Data Governance
The framework of rules, roles, standards, and processes used to manage the quality, security, privacy, access, and lifecycle of data across an organisation.
Digital Biomarker
A measurable physiological or behavioural variable collected through digital devices, such as wearables or smartphones, that can indicate health status, disease progression, or treatment response.
Digital Health
A broad field covering the use of digital technologies to improve healthcare delivery, patient engagement, health system efficiency, diagnostics, monitoring, prevention, and treatment.
Digital Therapeutics
Evidence-based software interventions designed to prevent, manage, or treat medical conditions, often delivered through structured digital platforms or applications.
Digital Twin
A virtual representation of a physical entity, process, or patient state that can be used to simulate, predict, and optimise healthcare outcomes or operational performance.
EHR (Electronic Health Record)
A digital version of a patient’s longitudinal medical record containing clinical history, diagnoses, medications, test results, treatment plans, and other healthcare data.
Explainability
The extent to which the internal logic, outputs, and reasoning of an AI model can be interpreted and understood by clinicians, regulators, or end users.
FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources)
A modern healthcare data exchange standard that supports structured sharing of clinical information through modular resources and API-friendly implementation approaches.
Genomics
The study of an organism’s complete set of DNA, including sequencing, function, variation, and how genetic information influences health and disease.
Health Informatics
The discipline concerned with acquiring, structuring, integrating, analysing, and applying health information to improve clinical care, public health, research, and system management.
HL7
A set of international standards for the exchange, integration, sharing, and retrieval of electronic health information across healthcare systems and applications.
Interoperability
The ability of different digital health systems, devices, and applications to exchange data and use that information meaningfully across organisational or technical boundaries.
mHealth
Mobile health; the delivery of health services, monitoring, education, or communication through mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, and connected applications.
Precision Medicine
An approach to prevention and treatment that considers individual variability in genes, environment, lifestyle, and clinical history to guide more tailored care.
Predictive Analytics
The use of statistical modelling, machine learning, and historical data to estimate future events such as disease risk, readmission, deterioration, or operational demand.
Remote Patient Monitoring
The collection and transmission of patient health data from outside conventional care settings, often through wearables, sensors, or connected home devices.
Telehealth
The provision of healthcare services, consultations, monitoring, and education through telecommunications technologies, including video, phone, and digital platforms.
Usability
The degree to which a digital health product can be used effectively, efficiently, and satisfactorily by its intended users in a defined context.
Wearable Health Technology
Body-worn digital devices that capture health-related signals such as heart rate, activity, sleep, oxygen saturation, or movement patterns.