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Care Technology Glossary

Our glossary includes key terms commonly used in the Technology-Enabled Care sector and will continue to expand over time. If there’s a term you think we should add, we’d love to hear from you.

  • FHIR, pronounced “fire”, is a global industry standard framework describing data formats and elements (known as “resources”) and an application programming interface for exchanging electronic health and care data between systems.
  • A telecommunications system based on fibre-optic cables run to a cabinet on the street and which uses a copper wire connection to link to the home. FTTC can provide multiple households with high-speed broadband access to the Internet.
  • A high-speed broadband telecommunications service delivered directly to the home through a fibre-optic cable.
  • First Time Call Failures is a measurement used to track the percentage of analogue calls failing over the digital telecoms network. In a telecare environment, a call failure can occur in various forms from a complete failed connection to a call with extensive distortion. The impact, at worst, will result in multiple attempts to reconnect, costing valuable minutes in an emergency; at best, it could be distortion impacting the ability of the operator and service users to converse and relay essential information.
  • See activity tracker.