Table 1.

Glossary of terms and definitions used in the field of telemedicine

e-Health	Electronic health is a general definition used to describe most aspects of healthcare delivery or management that is enabled by information technology or communications.
Telemedicine	Provision of patient care and consultation over a distance, using telecommunications technology. Basically, telemedicine considers the use of medical information, also known as Electronic Health Records, exchanged via electronic communications improving the patient’s health status.
Telehealth	Similar to telemedicine, refers to ‘remote clinical care enabled by technology supported information sharing and communication between patient and clinical staff’. It comprises remote health care delivery or monitoring between a health care professional and a patient outside of clinical settings, in their home or assisted living residence and integration of electronic transfer of physiological data via mobile phones, wearable electronic devices, or implantable electronic devices.
mHealth	Mobile health: all the mobile technologies (including phone and smart phone, tablet, digital device, with or without wearable sensors), used to deliver healthcare anytime and anywhere in the medical field. Typical mHealth services architectures use the Internet and Web services to provide an authentic pervasive interaction among doctors and patients.
Telemonitoring	Remote data collection from a patient through a device (ICD, pacemaker, ECG, blood pressure, glycaemia…) to measure his/her vital parameters and symptoms at home on a daily base.
Remote control	The device interrogation is made periodically to the patient’s home, manually by the patient or automatically by the monitoring system at predefined intervals.
Remote monitoring	Remote monitoring of patients’ physiological signals is one of the common applications in telemedicine. There is a continuous monitoring of the device, integrated by unplanned data transmissions, in case of alarm. It can be performed in either real-time or store-and-forward and checked by the health staff.
Teleconsultation	Second opinion consultation by specialist.
Tele + specialty (i.e. Telecardiology)	Application of telemedicine to a specific branch of medicine.
Telesurveillance = telemanagement  = telesupport	All these words indicate surveillance over a distance with the use of mobile wireless devices.