International Patient Access (IPA) is the emerging global standard that allows patients and medical apps to easily access and share health information across countries. It builds upon existing FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) standards but adds important improvements for secure, reliable, and consistent data exchange.
Many countries already use FHIR, but IPA addresses crucial limitations:
- Secure Access: IPA ensures that only authorized users and apps can access health information, protecting patient privacy. It defines how apps get permission to access data using standard methods (like OAuth 2.0).
- Standardized Data: IPA creates a common set of data types and formats. This means medical apps can work consistently across different systems worldwide, simplifying development and improving interoperability.
IPA enables the authorized access and exchange of the following data types:
- Patient Profiles: Basic demographics and identifiers.
- Allergies/Intolerances: A record of patient allergies and intolerances.
- Conditions: Diagnoses and health problems.
- Documents: Links to medical documents.
- Immunizations: Vaccination records.
- Medications: Information about prescribed and administered medications.
- Observations: Results from tests, vital signs, etc.
- Practitioners: Information about healthcare providers.
IPA’s Global Adoption:
Many countries and EHR (electronic health record) systems already support FHIR and are moving towards IPA-compliant systems. Several nations are actively building their national health information standards based on IPA.
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