10 Glossary
See also the glossary on the NICE website.
Assessment report
An assessment report is generated to support guidance development. This report can either be produced by NICE or an external assessment group (EAG). When produced by an EAG, this is an external assessment report, and the EAG is responsible for the content and quality of the report.
Commentary
Commentary obtained by the people and communities team that refers to patient opinion about an interventional procedure.
Committee
The committee is responsible for advising NICE on the safety and efficacy of interventional procedures.
EMBASE
Excerpta Medica database. A European database of medical and health research.
EmTree
The controlled vocabulary used for EMBASE and other similar databases.
Evidence summary table (in assessment report)
A summary in a tabular format of the design, methods, results and brief critical appraisal of the studies judged to be most valid and relevant in relation to the interventional procedure of interest.
Expert
A person nominated by a relevant professional organisation to advise NICE about notified procedures.
External assessment group
NICE commissions 4 external assessment groups to help develop its guidance. They help the interventional procedures programme develop systematic reviews when they are needed.
Generalisability
The extent to which the results of a study relating to a particular patient population or context hold true for other patient populations or different contexts.
HealthTech programme
The NICE HealthTech programme combines the former NICE Diagnostics Assessment programme, Interventional Procedures programme and Medical Technologies Evaluation programme.
Inclusion criteria (literature review)
Explicit criteria used to decide which studies should be considered as potential sources of evidence.
Indication
A condition or disease that may make a patient eligible for a particular treatment or procedure.
Interventional procedure
A procedure used for diagnosis or treatment that involves incision, puncture or entry into a body cavity, or the use of ionising, electromagnetic or acoustic energy.
Interventional procedures guidance
Guidance on the use of an interventional procedure based on current evidence of its safety and efficacy, issued by NICE after consultation has ended and the committee has met to discuss comments received at consultation.
Learning curve
The process by and time during which an individual surgeon or surgical team achieves proficiency in a particular surgical procedure. It relates mostly to complex and difficult procedures that need subspecialty expertise and skills.
MEDLINE
An online, open‑access, searchable electronic database produced by the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM).
Operator
The individual clinician who does a procedure. They may be, for example, a surgeon, interventional radiologist, radiotherapist or interventional physician.
Outcome (clinical)
The clinical effect that results from exposure to a healthcare intervention.
Patient commentary
The written information patient commentators provide about their personal experience of a procedure.
Patient commentator
Patient commentators are individuals who have either had a procedure or are the carer of someone who has. Patient commentators complete a questionnaire to provide information to the committee about their personal experience of a procedure.
Patient-focused outcome
Any health outcome that is directly meaningful to the patient (for example, survival, mortality, morbidity, quality of life). Such outcomes should be distinguished from surrogate outcomes.
Patient group, patient organisation
Terms used to cover patient, carer, community and other lay organisations, including those that represent people from groups protected by equalities legislation.
Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs)
Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) measure a patient's health status or health-related quality of life at a single point in time, and are collected through short, self-completed questionnaires.
People and communities team
The people and communities team advises NICE on patient and carer involvement and identifies patient and carer organisations interested in contributing to its work programme. It promotes effective patient and carer input by providing training and support to patient organisations and individual patients, carers and lay members who contribute to NICE's work.
Rapid review
A review of the literature that is systematic but not exhaustive (for example, not including direct contact with study authors, or manual searches of journals).
Register
A type of database for observations and related information about a group of patients, a disease or an intervention for the purpose of analysis.
Risk
The proportion of participants experiencing the adverse event of interest.
Search strategy
The combination of terms used to identify studies in an electronic database such as MEDLINE.
Serious adverse event
An adverse event resulting in death, hospitalisation, a prolonged hospital stay or long‑term loss of function.
Surrogate outcome
An outcome measure that is not of direct clinical importance but may be associated with patient‑focused clinical outcomes, such as 1 based on imaging findings or measurement of a biochemical marker. It should be distinguished from a patient‑focused outcome.
UK Conformity Assessed (UKCA) mark
A UKCA mark shows that a medical device is fit for its intended purpose, meets requirements in legislation relating to safety, and can be freely marketed in England, Wales and Scotland.