AI glossary for EMS

✔ Reviewed by A. Keith Wesley, MD, FACEP, FAEMS, board-certified EMS physician and former State EMS Medical Director (WI, MN) · Updated 2026-10-16 · How we review

• LLM (large language model): software trained on text that predicts words. It powers ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini.
• Hallucination: confident but false AI output. Always verify drug doses, citations and facts.
• PHI: Protected Health Information, meaning any data that can identify a patient.
• BAA (Business Associate Agreement): the HIPAA contract a vendor must sign before handling PHI.
• Ambient AI: listens to a conversation and drafts documentation.
• RAG / grounding: the AI answers from documents you provide, such as your protocols.
• Agent: AI that takes multi-step actions (browse, fill forms, run code) toward a goal.
• Context window: how much text the AI can consider at once.
• NEMSIS: the national EMS data standard (v3.5).

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