Glossary

Plain-language definitions of the terms used across the i-consult knowledge base. For the questions these terms come up in, see the Frequently asked questions; for how data is kept safe, see Is my patient data safe?.

| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Episode | A single patient consultation lifecycle in i-consult, from creation, through questionnaire completion, to medical history export. Each episode is tied to one patient and one appointment. For what an episode's status tells you, see What the episode statuses mean. |
| Clinical focus area | A structured medical concept (for example, "cardiovascular history" or "medication review") that the AI uses to guide the questionnaire. Focus areas are organised into tiers of specificity, and the system tracks how thoroughly each one has been covered. |
| Focus level | The depth of questioning for a consultation, set in your i-consult preferences. Options are Specialty Specific (targeted to your specialty plus some background), Broad (comprehensive general history, good for GPs and initial assessments), or Referral Specific (focused on the specific referral concern). |
| Medical history | The structured clinical document i-consult generates from the patient's answers (presenting complaint, history of presenting complaint, past medical history, current medications and more), formatted to match standard clinical documentation. It is self-reported and unverified, and the clinician remains responsible for reviewing it. |
| Consult-type mapping | The classification of EMR appointment types into i-consult categories (for example New Consult, Follow-up, Excluded). Only New Consult-mapped types create episodes. Configured per EMR source in Settings → Integrations. |
| Consultation type | Whether the appointment is a New consultation (first visit) or a Follow-up (returning patient). It affects the depth and focus of the questionnaire. |
| DOB verification | The identity step where a patient enters their date of birth before the questionnaire opens. It protects against unauthorised access to the link; after three failed attempts, access is locked. |
| Reconciliation | When appointments are synced from an EMR, the process of comparing the incoming data against existing i-consult episodes to work out what is new, changed, unchanged or cancelled, so syncing again doesn't create duplicates. |
| Safety flag | If a patient's responses suggest a potential safety concern, i-consult can flag the response for the clinician to review. It is a prompt for clinical attention, not emergency triage, and not clinical advice or diagnosis. |
| Human review | The episode status (shown in the dashboard as Under Review) indicating an episode the clinician needs to look at manually, typically because something has been flagged for clinical judgement. |
| Secretary | A clinical secretary or practice administrator who manages appointments and episodes on behalf of one or more clinicians. Secretaries only see episodes for clinicians they are explicitly associated with. |
| Gentu | An electronic medical record (EMR) system used in Australian healthcare. Gentu-connected i-scribe users can use i-consult, and can export the generated history to Gentu as a PDF attachment or a clinical correspondence letter. |
| Genie | An electronic medical record (EMR) system used in Australian healthcare. Genie-connected i-scribe users can use i-consult, with appointment-type sync to create episodes automatically. |
| i-scribe | Akuru's clinical records and documentation platform. i-consult is built to work with it; the generated history appears automatically in the i-scribe transcript box, ready before the consultation. |
| SSAPI | Shared Services API, Akuru's internal platform that coordinates communication, user management and integrations across Akuru products. |
| Browser extension sync | Importing upcoming appointments from a web-based EMR into i-consult via the Akuru browser extension, creating patient episodes for pre-consultation questionnaires. |

Episode statuses at a glance

The dashboard uses these status labels:

| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | The episode is created and the questionnaire is in progress or awaiting the patient. |
| Completed | The patient has finished and the medical history is generated and ready. |
| Declined | The episode was cancelled or the patient declined to continue. |
| Under Review | The episode is flagged for the clinician to review manually (human review). |

For more detail on each, see What the episode statuses mean.