The International Patient Summary (IPS) is a key standard for global interoperability. Its goal is to create a common foundation for patient summary exchange across borders and ensure the ability to share key information with caregivers whenever and wherever needed. Several nations and international organizations have selected the IPS as a baseline for their summaries, and recently major electronic health record (EHR) and health information technology (IT) vendors have shared their planned implementations. These include Epic, MEDITECH, CommonHealth, Google, Patient Centric Solutions, VeroSource and Verto Health. Like many successful standards, today’s progress has been years in the making.
Emerging a decade ago, the IPS is an ecosystem of standards emerging from collaboration among multiple standards development organizations (SDOs). In 2015, it became recognized by the Joint Initiative Council (JIC) as a key project involving the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), Health Level Seven International (HL7), International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and SNOMED International. In the past five years, over a dozen connectathon/projectathon events involving the IPS have been offered globally, with the most being offered by HL7 through its FHIR Connectathons. The IPS has been a track at each of the most recent ten HL7 FHIR Connectathons!
These connectathons have raised awareness of the IPS, improved the standard from testing feedback and provided a venue for early developers to demonstrate capabilities. Coming into the May 2024 HL7 FHIR Connectathon, Epic announced their planned support of the IPS and demonstrated their first prototype to a packed audience.
Joining Epic’s demo were two Canadian companies, VeroSource and Verto Health, showing capabilities of IPS generation and sharing with SMART Health Link QR codes. At the HL7 May 2024 Working Group Meeting, MEDITECH also announced their planned IPS support and future participation in FHIR connectathons. From prior connectathons, vendors like CommonHealth, Google and Patient Centric Solutions demonstrated IPS generation and sharing. CommonHealth’s support has been freely available for US residents since October 2023. Even ePatient Dave (Dave deBronkart) has gotten in on the action, making his data readily available through a simple QR code (see minute mark 7:51).
The use cases for IPS also extend far beyond individual vendors. As part of the annual Haj pilgrimage in 2024, the IPS was used to facilitate medical information exchange involving Oman, Malaysia and Indonesia. Canada has hosted multiples projectathons bringing together regional and national stakeholders to IPS implementation and published their national patient summary based on the IPS. New Zealand and Australia have launched multiple initiatives highlighting the role of the IPS and Brazil just published their planned IPS adoption in Oxford Open Digital Health.
What’s Next for IPS?
Now that a critical mass of vendors and nations are adopting the IPS, the next steps for the IPS are paramount. First the Global Digital Health Partnership (GDHP), made up of 36 nations and multiple international organizations, continues to support the IPS through information sharing and hosted events. The GDHP is the designated organization to advance the IPS in the G7 Roadmap for the IPS. The JIC has made a public call for feedback on stewardship and input to the future direction of the IPS. In addition, the SDOs participating in the IPS’ future continue to publish new standards, including the updated ISO 27269 and IHE’s Sharing of IPS profile.
Specific to HL7, two new versions of the IPS are intended to go to ballot in the September 2024 cycle. These will be 2.0 versions of both the FHIR IPS Implementation Guide and CDA IPS Implementation Guide, which incorporate learning and feedback from IPS events and implementers over the past several years. Also, SMART Health Cards and Health Links, which are often used by vendors to carry IPS documents, are being balloted in HL7 September 2024 cycle. While the IPS is only a single instrument in the standards universe, it plays a critical role in patient care transitions. Whether going down the street to a new provider or having an unexpected emergency overseas, the IPS communicates key medical information in a common format.
You can follow future progress on the IPS website and also by following its LinkedIn account. An IPS track will be offered at the September 2024 FHIR Connectathon, and we hope you’ll join us in Atlanta. Stay tuned to HL7 developments on chat.fhir.org and speak up to be part of the movement!