Terms Used In Tennessee Code > Title 29 > Chapter 1 - General Provisions-Extraordinary Process

• Advance directive: means an individual instruction or a written statement relating to the subsequent provision of health care for the individual, including, but not limited to, a living will or a durable power of attorney for health care. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Agent: means an individual designated in an advance directive for health care to make a health care decision for the individual granting the power. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Board: means the board for licensing healthcare facilities. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1602
• Capacity: means an individual's ability to understand the significant benefits, risks, and alternatives to proposed health care and to make and communicate a health care decision. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Certificate of need: means a permit granted by the health facilities commission to a person for those services specified as requiring a certificate of need under §. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1602
• Code: includes the Tennessee Code and all amendments and revisions to the code and all additions and supplements to the code. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Codicil: An addition, change, or supplement to a will executed with the same formalities required for the will itself.
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Department: means the department of health. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1602
• Designated physician: means a physician designated by an individual or the individual's agent, guardian, or surrogate, to have primary responsibility for the individual's health care or, in the absence of a designation or if the designated physician is not reasonably available, a physician who undertakes such responsibility. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
• Guardian: means a judicially appointed guardian or conservator having authority to make a health care decision for an individual. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Health care: means any care, treatment, service or procedure to maintain, diagnose, treat, or otherwise affect an individual's physical or mental condition, and includes medical care as defined in §. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Health care decision: means consent, refusal of consent or withdrawal of consent to health care. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Health care institution: means a health care institution as defined in §. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Health care provider: means a person who is licensed, certified or otherwise authorized or permitted by the laws of this state to administer health care in the ordinary course of business in practicing of a profession. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Individual instruction: means an individual's direction concerning a health care decision for the individual. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• Minor: means any person who has not attained eighteen (18) years of age. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Person: means an individual, corporation, estate, trust, partnership, association, joint venture, government, governmental subdivision, agency, or instrumentality, or any other legal or commercial entity. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Person: includes a corporation, firm, company or association. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Personally informing: means a communication by any effective means from the patient directly to a health care provider. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Physician: means an individual authorized to practice medicine or osteopathy under title 63, chapter 6 or 9. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Power of attorney: A written instrument which authorizes one person to act as another's agent or attorney. The power of attorney may be for a definite, specific act, or it may be general in nature. The terms of the written power of attorney may specify when it will expire. If not, the power of attorney usually expires when the person granting it dies. ^{Source: OCC}
• Power of attorney for health care: means the designation of an agent to make health care decisions for the individual granting the power. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Property: includes both personal and real property. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Reasonably available: means readily able to be contacted without undue effort and willing and able to act in a timely manner considering the urgency of the patient's health care needs. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Record: means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in a perceivable form. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• Service: means service as a general employee, a teacher, a state police officer, a wildlife officer, a firefighter, a police officer, a state judge, a county judge, an attorney general, a commissioner or a county official which is paid for by an employer, and also includes service for which a former member of the general assembly is entitled to under former §. See Tennessee Code 8-34-101
• signed: includes a mark, the name being written near the mark and witnessed, or any other symbol or methodology executed or adopted by a party with intention to authenticate a writing or record, regardless of being witnessed. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• State: means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or a territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• Surrogate: means an individual, other than a patient's agent or guardian, authorized under this part to make a health care decision for the patient. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• Treating health care provider: means a health care provider who at the time is directly or indirectly involved in providing health care to the patient. See Tennessee Code 68-11-1802
• United States: includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
• written: includes printing, typewriting, engraving, lithography, and any other mode of representing words and letters. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105