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IPSInternational Patient Summary

In short

The IPS is a minimal clinical summary of a patient, designed so that a clinician who does not know the person can treat them safely, even in another country. It brings together the essentials, such as health problems, allergies and medications, in a standard format any system can read. Governments and international programs are adopting it as the basis of their patient summaries.

Type
Implementation guide
Steward
HL7 International
Current version
STU 2 (2.0.1)
Reviewed
October 25, 2026

Explanation

What it is

The International Patient Summary (IPS) is an extract of the health record with a person's essential information. ISO 27269 defines it as a "minimal and non-exhaustive" data set, specialty-agnostic and condition-independent, designed for unplanned, cross-border care, although it also serves local and planned care.

Three pieces are often confused:

  • The data set: ISO 27269, whose second edition was published in 2025. It is abstract and does not say how to code or transmit anything.
  • The HL7 implementation guide: defines the IPS as a FHIR R4 document. As of October 2026, the current version is STU 2 (2.0.1, June 2026). HL7 also publishes a CDA R2 representation.
  • The IHE profiles: describe how to share and query that document between systems.

Content

The FHIR document is a Bundle headed by a Composition with 16 possible sections. Three are required: problems, allergies and intolerances, and medication summary. If there is no data, that must be stated explicitly. The others are optional: immunizations, results, procedures, devices, advance directives, alerts, functional status, past problems, pregnancy, vital signs, social history, plan of care and the patient story. Alerts and the patient story arrived with STU 2.

Each section carries human-readable text in addition to coded data, so the receiver sees what the source wrote even if it cannot process all the content. The guide uses SNOMED CT as its primary terminology, together with LOINC and others. A server can generate the IPS on demand with the $summary operation.

Common misconceptions

  • The IPS is not a complete health record and does not replace the provider's record.
  • It is not just "for travellers": cross-border care is the design scenario, not a limit.
  • Conforming to the IPS does not mean meeting every national variant. Each country's adaptation can add constraints, and an IPS document from another region may not meet them.
  • ISO 27269 is not a technical guide; implementers need the HL7 guide.

Usage examples

  1. Since Hajj 1445 (2024), pilgrims from Oman, Malaysia and Indonesia can share their IPS, verified through the WHO Global Digital Health Certification Network (GDHCN).

  2. Canada Health Infoway publishes the pan-Canadian Patient Summary, PS-CA, as a FHIR guide based on the HL7 IPS guide.

  3. The G7-IPS roadmap, published in December 2021, supports the G7 commitment to give patients access to their information through open standards.

  4. A FHIR server answers the $summary operation with a patient's up-to-date IPS, without having to store it as a document.

  5. WHO publishes the SMART "Verifiable IPS for Pilgrimage" guide, based on FHIR R4, for using the IPS during pilgrimage on the GDHCN infrastructure.

  6. An emergency department checks the IPS allergies section before prescribing a medication to a patient who arrives with no history.

Relation to other terms

Relies on4

  • FHIRRequired

    The HL7 guide defines the IPS as a FHIR R4 document; HL7 publishes a CDA R2 representation as the alternative.

  • LOINCRequired

    The guide fixes the document type (60591-5) and the code of each section with LOINC codes.

  • SNOMED CTStrong

    The IPS value sets for problems, allergies and other clinical data are based on SNOMED CT, with preferred bindings.

  • CDAMedium

    HL7 also publishes the IPS as CDA R2 templates, useful where the document infrastructure is already CDA.

Depend on this one0

No glossary term depends on this one.

Sources

  1. HL7 — International Patient Summary Implementation Guide (STU 2)hl7.org
  2. HL7 IPS — IPS Composition profilehl7.org
  3. ISO 27269:2025 — Health informatics — International patient summaryiso.org
  4. IHE ITI — Verifiable Health Links: Hajj pilgrimage use caseprofiles.ihe.net
  5. WHO — SMART Verifiable IPS for Pilgrimagesmart.who.int
  6. Canada Health Infoway — PS-CA FHIR Implementation Guideinfoscribe.infoway-inforoute.ca
  7. G7 International Patient Summary Roadmap (2021)assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
  8. IHE Patient Care Coordination — profilesprofiles.ihe.net
Health interoperability glossary