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Healthcare & Technical Glossary

CareLaunch terms​

  • Instance: A branded patient site inside an organization. A Solo practice has one, labeled My Instance. Organizations with the multiple-instances feature (Enterprise) manage them under Instances.
  • Organization: The practice or program account. Its name, logo, users, and plan live here.
  • Registration Workflow: The steps a new patient completes to join, such as an account, demographics, consent, and forms. Solo practices open it from My Instance > Registration workflow or the Launch your practice checklist. Other practices use Settings > Registration.
  • Service Request: The record of a requested service, such as a registration or a referral, including its status and any scheduling or payment tied to it. See Service Request Lifecycle.
  • Healthcare Service: A service patients can book. It has a name and a duration, and it can be tied to a Stripe product when the visit is paid. Managed under Settings > Healthcare Services.
  • Segment: A saved group of patients defined by conditions on their records. A campaign re-checks the segment every time it runs.
  • Outreach: The admin menu for campaigns, segments, and the addresses or numbers you send from. It is not included on the Solo plan. Building a campaign requires Platform Admin.
  • Concierge: An in-app assistant for administrators. It stays off until CareLaunch turns it on, and it is shown only to someone who has Platform Admin or Organization Admin. See AI Concierge.
  • Workflows: Workflow definitions, such as care plans and protocols, managed at Settings > Workflows. The same Settings category also holds Registration, Portal Requests, and Tasks. Separate from automations, which run actions when something happens.
  • Board: A kanban view of tasks, plus the built-in appointment board. Open Board in the sidebar. See Boards.
  • Launch checklist: The Launch your practice list on Home. Shown to Solo practices. It tracks the practice logo, web address, registration workflow, appointment booking, and payments, and it unlocks the patient registration link when those steps are done.
  • Appointment reminder: An automatic email, text message, or in-app notification sent to the patient and the providers before an appointment. Channels and send times are set at Settings > Reminders. See Appointment Reminders.
  • Staff reminder: A follow-up to-do for staff on the Reminders page. It does not message patients. See Reminders.

Healthcare Terms​

A​

  • Acute Care: Short-term medical care for severe injury or illness
  • Authorization: Approval required before certain medical procedures can be performed
  • ACO: Accountable Care Organization - A group of healthcare providers who coordinate care for Medicare patients

B​

  • BMI: Body Mass Index - A measure of body fat based on height and weight

C​

  • CMS: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services - Federal agency that administers Medicare, Medicaid, and other health programs
  • CPT Code: Current Procedural Terminology Code - Codes used for medical services and procedures
  • Care Coordination: Organization of patient care activities between two or more participants involved in a patient's care
  • Care Management: Proactive management of a patient's health to improve outcomes and control costs
  • Chronic Care Management: Ongoing care for patients with multiple chronic conditions

D​

  • Demographics: Basic personal information about a patient
  • DRG: Diagnosis Related Group - A system to classify hospital cases for payment

E​

  • EHR: Electronic Health Record - Digital version of a patient's complete medical history
  • EMR: Electronic Medical Record - Digital version of a patient's chart at a single facility
  • Encounter: A direct interaction between a patient and healthcare provider

F​

  • FHIR: Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources - A standard for exchanging healthcare information electronically
  • Fee-for-Service: Payment model where providers are paid for each service performed
  • Final Reports: Clinical documents shared with a patient in the patient portal — such as a Treatment Summary, Progress Note, Discharge Summary, or Consultation. Distinct from admin analytics Reports (see the Technical Terms section)

H​

  • HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
  • HL7: Health Level Seven - Set of standards for transfer of clinical data
  • HCC: Hierarchical Condition Category - Risk adjustment model used by CMS for Medicare Advantage plans

I​

  • ICD: International Classification of Diseases - Standardized diagnostic codes
  • Interoperability: Ability of different systems to exchange and use information
  • Intake: Initial process of collecting patient information and assessing needs

L​

  • LOINC: Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes - Universal standard for identifying medical laboratory observations

P​

  • PHI: Protected Health Information - Individually identifiable health information
  • Population Health: Health outcomes of a group of individuals
  • Prior Authorization: Pre-approval required before certain healthcare services can be provided

Q​

  • Quality Measures: Tools that help measure healthcare processes, outcomes, and organizational structures

R​

  • Risk Adjustment: Method to account for differences in patient health status when comparing outcomes across populations
  • Risk Stratification: Process of categorizing patients by risk level

S​

  • SNOMED CT: Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine - Clinical Terms - Comprehensive clinical terminology
  • Social Determinants of Health: Economic and social conditions that influence individual and group differences in health status

Technical Terms​

A​

  • API: Application Programming Interface - A set of rules that allow different software applications to communicate with each other
  • AWS: Amazon Web Services - Cloud computing platform providing infrastructure and services
  • Authentication: Process of verifying a user's identity
  • Authorization: Process of determining a user's access permissions

B​

  • Bundle: In FHIR, a collection of resources in a single package
  • Batch Processing: Method of processing data in groups rather than individually

C​

  • Cache: Temporary storage area for frequently accessed data
  • CRUD: Create, Read, Update, Delete - Basic functions of persistent storage
  • CRM: Customer Relationship Management - System for managing interactions with customers

D​

  • Data Mapping: Process of matching fields from one database to another
  • Data Warehouse: System for reporting and data analysis

E​

  • Endpoint: Point of entry in a communication channel
  • ETL: Extract, Transform, Load - Process of combining data from multiple sources

F​

  • FHIR: Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources - Standard for exchanging healthcare information electronically
  • Firewall: Network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic

H​

  • HL7v2: Health Level Seven Version 2 - Messaging standard for healthcare data exchange
  • HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol - Foundation of data communication on the web

J​

  • JSON: JavaScript Object Notation - Lightweight data interchange format
  • JWT: JSON Web Token - Compact, URL-safe means of representing claims to be transferred between two parties

O​

  • OAuth: Open standard for access delegation
  • ONC: Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

P​

  • PaaS: Platform as a Service
  • PHI: Protected Health Information - Individually identifiable health information
  • Pipeline: Series of data processing elements connected in series

R​

  • REST: Representational State Transfer - Architectural style for distributed systems
  • RESTful API: API that conforms to the constraints of REST architecture
  • Reports (admin): Analytics and operational reports for administrators — registration funnel, financial reconciliation, appointment reminders, duplicate detection, and custom SQL reports. Distinct from patient-portal Final Reports (clinical documents; see the Healthcare Terms section). See Built-in Reports
  • Resource: In FHIR, a single unit of exchangeable content with a defined behavior and meaning

S​

  • SDK: Software Development Kit - Set of tools for creating applications
  • SFTP: Secure File Transfer Protocol - Network protocol for secure file transfer
  • SLA: Service Level Agreement - Commitment between a service provider and a client
  • SMART on FHIR: Set of open specifications to integrate apps with Electronic Health Records and health portals

T​

  • Token: A piece of data used for authenticating a user session
  • Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): Security process requiring two different authentication factors

V​

  • VPN: Virtual Private Network - Extends a private network across a public network

W​

  • Web Service: Service offered by an electronic device to another electronic device, communicating via the internet
  • Webhook: HTTP callback that occurs when something happens

X​

  • XML: Extensible Markup Language - Format for encoding documents

This glossary is continuously updated as new terms are added to the platform. If you have suggestions for additional terms, please contact the documentation team.