Glossary of Key Concepts for Understanding Digitalization in Healthcare

Digital transformation in the healthcare sector has introduced new technologies, care models, and interoperability standards that require both technical and strategic understanding. This glossary brings together the key terms needed to understand today’s digital healthcare landscape.

From electronic health record systems to clinical data exchange architectures, this content offers a clear guide for technical teams, institutional decision-makers, and healthcare professionals.

Digital Transformation

The process through which healthcare organizations integrate digital technologies into their clinical, administrative, and management workflows, aiming to improve efficiency, quality of care, and the patient experience.

Interoperability

The ability of different systems and organizations to exchange, interpret, and use data securely and effectively. In healthcare, interoperability is essential to ensure continuity of care and improve the efficiency of the health system.

Hospital Management

Hospital management covers the planning, coordination and optimisation of a healthcare organisation’s clinical, administrative, financial and operational processes. In a digital context, the concept is directly linked to the use of HIS systems, medical scheduling, electronic clinical records and interoperability tools. To explore this topic further, we recommend reading about what hospital management is.

HIS (Hospital Information System)

Understanding what an HIS is is key to advancing the digitalisation of a healthcare organisation. It is a comprehensive hospital management system that centralises and organises clinical, administrative and financial information, allowing modules such as laboratory, pharmacy, admissions and patient care to be integrated.

IHE (Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise)

An international initiative that promotes the coordinated adoption of standards such as HL7, DICOM, and XDS to improve interoperability among healthcare systems. It defines integration profiles to address specific clinical use cases and facilitate both technical and semantic interoperability.

HL7 (Health Level Seven)

An international organization that defines standards for the electronic exchange of healthcare information. HL7 V2 is one of the most widely used standards in hospital settings, while FHIR represents its more modern evolution, focused on open architectures.

FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources)

The FHIR standard was developed by HL7 to make it easier to exchange health information using modern web technologies such as RESTful APIs, JSON and XML. Its adoption enables more agile, modular and secure interoperability between clinical applications, supporting data integration in increasingly connected healthcare ecosystems.

CDA (Clinical Document Architecture)

An HL7 standard for defining the structure and content of electronic clinical documents. It ensures that documents are interpretable by both humans and systems, promoting document-level interoperability.

XDS (Cross-Enterprise Document Sharing)

An interoperability framework that enables the sharing of clinical documents among different healthcare organizations. It facilitates secure and controlled access to relevant patient information, even between non-integrated institutions.

SNOMED CT

Standardized clinical terminology that enables precise and uniform coding of medical concepts. It is essential for achieving semantic interoperability, clinical analysis, and improving data quality in digital health systems.

LOINC (Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes)

A coding standard used to identify clinical and laboratory results. It facilitates the exchange and analysis of clinical data across heterogeneous systems with high precision.

Telemedicine / Telehealth

Medical care modalities that use digital technologies to provide remote services. They expand access to healthcare, reduce wait times, and improve coverage in remote areas.

Medical Record

A document containing the relevant data of a specific patient encounter. In digitalized contexts, it is part of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) and contributes to continuity of care.

EHR (Electronic Health Record) / HCE (Spanish: Historia Clínica Electrónica)

An electronic health record that securely and structurally integrates all relevant clinical information of a person over time. Also known as the Electronic Health Record (EHR), this system provides a longitudinal view of the patient’s health status, facilitating continuity of care, clinical decision-making, and information exchange across different levels of care.

Oncology Clinical Record (HCO)

The Oncology Clinical Record (HCO) is a structured digital record that centralizes all clinical information related to the care of oncology patients. It includes medical history, diagnostic studies, pathology reports, prescribed treatments (such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery), clinical progress, and follow-ups.

Patient Portal

A secure digital application that allows patients to access their clinical information, view test results, manage administrative requests such as appointments, communicate with their healthcare team, and actively participate in managing their health.

Patient Safety

A set of processes and technologies aimed at reducing the risk of medical errors, protecting the integrity of clinical data, and ensuring a safe care environment in digital contexts.

MDM (Master Data Management)

Centralized management of master data (patients, professionals, facilities, etc.) that ensures the quality, consistency, and governance of information shared within a care network.

EMPI (Enterprise Master Patient Index)

A system that enables the unique identification of each patient across different systems or institutions. It is key to preventing duplicates and consolidating a single health record per individual.