HL7 FHIR Implementation of the International Patient Summary
The Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources 
(FHIR, pronounced liked “fire”) standard defines how healthcare data can be exchanged between different information technology. It’s the most recent primary standard developed by Health Level 7 (HL7) and based on internet standards for data exchange used by many industries. FHIR breaks down information into packets, called resources within the standard, which can be communicated through application programming interfaces, often in the form of requests and responses.
The International Patient Summary on FHIR (HL7 FHIR IPS IG ) is an implementation guide that specifies and constrains how FHIR can communicate data related to patient summaries. The IPS document is composed by a set of robust, well-defined and potentially reusable sets of FHIR resources. It requires information on patient allergies, medications and problems, but allows for a wide array of other information to be included as well. It is one of two HL7 implementations that give technical guidance on how to structure and communicate information related to the ISO 27269 standard, with the other one being the HL7 Clinical Document Architecture IPS Implementation Guide (HL7 CDA IPS IG)
IPS FHIR was first formally published by HL7 in May 2020. It has been tested at several HL7 and other connectathons and is planned for implementation by several nations in the coming years. For more information on the standard or to help contribute to its development, you can refer to its website , join the discussion on FHIR Zulip Chat , or look at upcoming meetings and topics within HL7’s Confluence website .