The CLEARED Lexicon

The words for the thing you are already doing

Three terms carry the CLEARED framework. Each one names a decision practitioners already make, usually without a name for it, and almost always without a record of it.

Start where you are1 Model Cards2 Checklist3 Self-Audit4 Lexicon5 The Brief

Term 01

Red/Yellow/Green Zone Model

A framework for sorting AI use in practice by risk exposure. Every tool in your practice sits in one of three zones, and the zone determines how much review the output requires before it moves.

  • Green Zone: Cleared for UseAI use that does not touch clinical content or protected health information.Examples: a transcription tool summarizing internal notes you wrote; a scheduling assistant proposing time blocks.
  • Yellow Zone: Proceed With GuardrailsAI use that touches client-facing content without generating clinical recommendations.Examples: a drafted email going to a client after your review; a newsletter subject line written by the model.
  • Red Zone: Pause and RedesignAI use that intersects with PHI, clinical decisions, or content reaching clients without human review.Examples: a symptom summary built from intake notes; a care recap from a session transcript; a protocol suggestion.

How to: sort your own tools

Ask one question of each AI use: if this output is wrong, who is harmed, and how badly?

  1. Does it touch client information or clinical content? If not, it is Green.
  2. Does its output reach a client, without a clinical recommendation? It is Yellow. Add a review step before it goes out.
  3. Does it touch protected health information or a clinical decision, or reach a client without your review? It is Red. Pause that use and redesign it.

Start with the tools on your Beginner’s Checklist inventory. Sort the ones that touch client information first.

The Red/Yellow/Green Zone Model is a CLEARED framework, first published by Strategic Health Group in March 2026.

Term 02

Human Authority Filter

The principle that no AI output reaches a client without a credentialed human review checkpoint.

The Filter is not a tool. It is the practice you build around your AI use to keep the practitioner accountable for what reaches the client.

Check yourself: Self-Audit question 5.

Term 03

Documentation Discipline

The practice of recording what came from the AI tool, what came from your training, and what synthesis happened in between.

It is the documentation standard that holds up under review, because it shows the human reasoning behind every output.

Begin with the simple log on the Beginner’s Checklist: date, tool and task. Then build toward the full standard: what came from the AI, what came from you, and how you combined them.

Check yourself: Self-Audit question 7.

Where does your practice actually stand?

The CLEARED Self-Audit puts these terms to work. Nine questions, about ten minutes, and a gap map with a first step for every gap.

Take the CLEARED Self-Audit

On this vocabulary

These terms are used consistently across the CLEARED Intelligence Brief and the CLEARED Install. They are working definitions from practice, not regulatory categories. Where a state law or a certification body uses a term differently, the Brief tracks the difference weekly.