eHealth, Telemedicine, mHealth: a glossary for designers
The three terms overlap but aren't equivalent. Telling them apart changes what you research, who you talk to, and what regulation applies.
Part of the guide Design for Health
When I started researching design in health, I mixed three terms up. eHealth, telemedicine and mHealth showed up as synonyms in many articles, but in more careful sources they had clear boundaries.
This post puts them in order. It’s short, practical, and works as a reference when you’re researching digital health.
eHealth: the umbrella term
eHealth is the broadest concept. It covers anything involving electronic processes in support of health practices and systems. It includes:
- Electronic health records (EHR).
- E-prescriptions.
- Telemedicine (subset, see below).
- mHealth (subset, see below).
- Hospital management apps, scheduling, billing.
- Internal communication platforms among professionals.
The WHO definition is “the use of information and communication technologies in support of health and health management”. Broad on purpose.
When someone says “I work in eHealth”, they could be designing anything from an EHR system for hospitals to a symptom-tracking app. Always ask what, within that.
Telemedicine: remote clinical services
Telemedicine is the eHealth subset that covers clinical services delivered remotely. Originally developed to treat patients in remote areas. Now mainstream.
It includes:
- Teleconsultation: doctor-patient consultation by video or audio.
- Telemonitoring: remote monitoring of vitals (sleep apnoea, blood glucose, blood pressure).
- Tele-assistance: clinical support to professionals who are physically with the patient.
- Tele-expertise: peer review among specialists at a distance.
There’s a useful table that summarises differences between eHealth and Telemedicine (Bensemmane & Baeten, 2019):
| Telemedicine | eHealth |
|---|---|
| Provision of remote clinical services. | Broader term; covers all aspects of healthcare practices supported by electronic processes. |
| Initially developed to treat patients in remote areas. | Involves the use of electronic systems to support healthcare delivery and other records. |
| Activities can include video consultations, remote patient monitoring, digital transmission. | Aims to improve the services healthcare practitioners provide to patients. |
Telemedicine grew most during the COVID-19 pandemic. It will keep growing, especially in areas with limited access to specialists.
mHealth: health on mobile
mHealth (mobile health) is the subset that lives on mobile: smartphones, tablets, wearables, connected sensors.
It includes:
- Tracking apps for symptoms, medication, physical activity.
- Health education apps.
- Wearables with sensors (Apple Watch, Fitbit, Oura).
- Telemedicine apps that run on mobile.
- SMS-based interventions in low-smartphone-penetration contexts.
In terms of overlap, mHealth is often part of telemedicine (an app doing teleconsultation) and always part of eHealth.
The nuance: mHealth has specific challenges because of the form factor (small screen, mobile context, battery, sensors). Designing for mHealth needs additional heuristics that overlap with Accessibility beyond contrast.
Visualising the relationships
In a Venn diagram:
- eHealth is the big circle.
- Telemedicine is a subset in the middle (covers remote clinical services).
- mHealth crosses eHealth and telemedicine (mobile apps that may or may not involve clinical services).
There are also other categories within eHealth that aren’t telemedicine or mHealth:
- EHR (electronic records).
- e-prescriptions.
- Public health surveillance (digital epidemiology).
Why the distinction matters for designers
Three practical reasons:
1. Regulation changes. Telemedicine, in many countries, has specific regulation (licensed doctors, jurisdiction, billing). eHealth in the broad sense has lighter regulation. mHealth can fall under medical-device regulation (MDR in the EU, FDA in the US) if it makes clinical claims.
2. Stakeholders change. In telemedicine there are doctors, hospitals, insurers. In mHealth it can be just the user and the app. In EHR it’s clinical professionals and hospital admins. Each combination changes who you interview, who approves, who pays.
3. Design heuristics change. Telemedicine inherits patterns from clinical software (dense, jargon, legal flows). mHealth inherits patterns from consumer apps (light, gestures, notifications). EHR is its own category with its own UX issues (costly errors, severe multitasking, admin friction).
To get started
When you start a digital health project, ask:
- Which subset does this fall into? Generic eHealth, telemedicine, mHealth, EHR, other?
- Who are the stakeholders? Patients, doctors, hospitals, insurers, regulator?
- Which regulation applies? GDPR, MDR, FDA, local norms?
- Which design patterns are relevant? Apple HIG, Material, clinical patterns, IEC 62366 (medical-device usability engineering)?
More on the background in the Design for Health guide. On how to map the end-user of these systems, see Patient care journeys. On the research methodology, see Designing with patients, not for them. On the conversational AI side of digital health (which crosses these categories), see Grice’s Maxims as conversational design heuristics.
