Glossary
Every key technology and standard, defined in plain language — each term opens its full entry.
37 terms
A
AI agents & tool useAn LLM in a loop: reason, call a tool, observe the result, repeat — turning a text generator into a system that does things.AI-Native SystemsAmbient documentationThe AI scribe: listen to the visit, draft the note — attacking healthcare's documentation burden at its source.AI-Native SystemsApache KafkaA durable, replayable event log for high-volume streams — the backbone when device telemetry outgrows a simple broker.Infrastructure & DevOps
B
C
CI/CDMerge, test, ship as a pipeline: continuous integration proves every change; continuous delivery makes releasing boring.Infrastructure & DevOpsCoAPHTTP's tiny cousin for constrained devices — request/response over UDP when even MQTT is too heavy.IoT & RoboticsContainers & KubernetesPackage the app with its world, then let an orchestrator keep fleets of them running — the default shape of modern health-IT infrastructure.Infrastructure & DevOpsCRDTsData structures that merge concurrent edits automatically — how offline-first health apps sync without a referee.Computer Science
D
DICOMThe standard that runs medical imaging end to end — file format, network protocol, and workflow in one.Interoperability & StandardsDIDs & verifiable credentialsCryptographically checkable claims — a nursing licence or a SIDHI certificate any employer can verify in seconds without calling anyone.IT & SecurityDifferential privacyA mathematical privacy guarantee: published statistics barely change whether or not you are in the dataset — provably.IT & SecurityDigital twinsA continuously updated virtual copy of a physical thing — a device, a ward, eventually a patient — you can query and simulate against.IoT & Robotics
E
Edge computingProcessing data where it is produced — at the bedside, gateway, or device — instead of round-tripping everything to the cloud.IoT & RoboticsEmbeddings & vector databasesTurn text into coordinates in meaning-space, then search by closeness — the index that makes semantic search and RAG work.AI-Native Systems
F
G
gRPCA fast binary RPC framework over HTTP/2 — how backend microservices call each other when JSON-over-REST is too slow or too loose.Software & Tech StackGuardrails & safetyThe layers around a model that keep it in-scope, grounded and resistant to manipulation — engineering, not hope.AI-Native Systems
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I
ICD-11WHO's classification for counting disease — fully digital, API-first, with a traditional-medicine chapter India helped shape.Terminologies & Code SystemsIEEE 11073The standards family for how medical devices describe themselves and their measurements — the device-side counterpart to FHIR.IoT & Robotics
L
LLMOps & evalsThe operations discipline for AI features: versioned prompts, automated evals, monitoring and cost control — because 'it seemed fine in the demo' is not a deployment strategy.AI-Native SystemsLOINCThe universal codes for lab tests and observations — answering 'which question was asked?' while SNOMED answers 'what was found?'Terminologies & Code Systems
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O
ObservabilityLogs, metrics and traces designed in from the start — so 'why is it slow?' has an answer instead of a war room.Infrastructure & DevOpsOMOP CDMOne common shape for observational health data — load your EHR into it and every OHDSI analysis ever written runs on your data.Data & AnalyticsopenEHRModel the clinic once, store forever: archetype-based records where clinical models live outside the software.Interoperability & Standards
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R
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)Ground an LLM's answer in your own documents: retrieve relevant passages first, then generate with them in context — citations included.AI-Native SystemsRTOSAn operating system that promises *when*, not just *what* — the software heart of infusion pumps, monitors and ventilators.IoT & Robotics
T
U
W
WebAssembly (WASM) & WASIA portable, sandboxed binary format: run near-native code safely in browsers and servers — capability-based security included.Software & Tech StackWebGPUModern GPU access from the browser — compute shaders and fast graphics that make client-side medical imaging and on-device ML practical.Software & Tech StackWebRTCThe browser standard for real-time audio, video and data — the engine inside nearly every telemedicine consultation.Software & Tech StackWebSocketOne TCP connection, kept open, messages flowing both ways — how dashboards get live vitals without polling.Software & Tech Stack