International Patient Summary (IPS) in FHIR

The IPS sections and LOINC codes, how the FHIR document Bundle is built, a real excerpt generated by the platform, and one call to produce a validated IPS.

The International Patient Summary (IPS) is a standard, minimal health summary — allergies, medications, problems and, when available, immunizations, results and vital signs — packaged as a FHIR document Bundle so it can be read in any country. It is defined by the HL7 FHIR IPS implementation guide and used by the European Health Data Space for cross-border care. Anpheros generates an IPS for any patient from their FHIR R4 record with one call, Patient/{id}/$summary, and the result validates with 0 errors in the official HL7 validator.

The sections

How the document is built

A FHIR IPS is a Bundle of type document, profiled Bundle-uv-ips. Its first entry is a Composition (LOINC 60591-5 "Patient summary Document"), whose sections reference the resources that follow in the Bundle: the Patient, the AllergyIntolerance, MedicationStatement, Condition, Immunization and Observation resources, and the author and custodian. Every section carries a generated XHTML narrative, so a person can read the document without software.

This excerpt comes from a real document generated by the platform for a synthetic patient (ids shortened):

{
  "resourceType": "Bundle",
  "type": "document",
  "meta": {"profile": ["http://hl7.org/fhir/uv/ips/StructureDefinition/Bundle-uv-ips"]},
  "entry": [
    {"resource": {
      "resourceType": "Composition",
      "status": "final",
      "type": {"coding": [{"system": "http://loinc.org", "code": "60591-5", "display": "Patient summary Document"}]},
      "title": "International Patient Summary",
      "author": [{"reference": "Device/…", "display": "Anpheros Platform"}],
      "custodian": {"reference": "Organization/…", "display": "Anpheros"},
      "section": [
        {"title": "Allergies", "code": {"coding": [{"system": "http://loinc.org", "code": "48765-2"}]},
         "entry": [{"reference": "AllergyIntolerance/…"}]},
        {"title": "Medications", "code": {"coding": [{"system": "http://loinc.org", "code": "10160-0"}]},
         "entry": [{"reference": "MedicationStatement/…"}]}
      ]
    }},
    {"resource": {"resourceType": "Patient"}},
    {"resource": {"resourceType": "AllergyIntolerance"}},
    {"resource": {"resourceType": "MedicationStatement"}}
  ]
}

Generate one

curl "https://platform.anpheros.com/fhir/R4/Patient/$PID/\$summary?lang=en" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KEY" -o ips.json

• Required sections are never empty: when nothing is recorded, they say so with the IPS absent-or-unknown codes, and an application can write an explicit "no known allergies".
• Resources with invalid codes are left out and reported in a response header, so one bad record does not break the document.
• ?lang=en or ?lang=ro sets the language of the narrative.
• A patient outside your access returns 404.

Frequently asked questions

What is an International Patient Summary?

A minimal, specialty-agnostic summary of a person's health — allergies, medications and problems, plus immunizations, results and vital signs when available — standardised by HL7 as a FHIR document so it can be shared across borders.

Which sections are required in an IPS?

Allergies and intolerances (LOINC 48765-2), medication summary (10160-0) and problem list (11450-4). Immunizations, results and vital signs are recommended.

How do I generate an IPS from FHIR data?

Collect the patient's resources, build a Composition with the IPS sections and narratives, and package everything as a document Bundle. With Anpheros this is one request: GET /fhir/R4/Patient/{id}/$summary.

Is the Anpheros IPS validated?

Yes. The generated document validates with 0 errors in the official HL7 FHIR validator against the IPS implementation guide.

What is the IPS used for in Europe?

The European Health Data Space lists the patient summary among the priority categories that must be exchangeable in the European format.

Related

• FHIR platform: $summary, $everything and the 26 resource types
• European Health Data Space (EHDS) for developers
• Longitudinal patient data API
• Healthcare data interoperability
• The International Patient Summary, for patients