Meddyg led the technical design and implementation behind Costa Rica's first functional health interoperability demonstration, a milestone that connects public and private systems without centralizing medical data.

Costa Rica took a decisive step toward an interoperable health system. Convened by the Global Life-Centered Hub (GLCH), a group of companies and institutions successfully completed the country's first functional test proving that different health systems can exchange medical information securely, traceably, and without a centralized database.

At Meddyg, we led the technical design of this demonstration: we defined the interoperability architecture, implemented the data-exchange layer under the HL7 FHIR standard through Kivú FHIR, our interoperability façade, and coordinated —together with our GLCH partners Siftia and Esicom— the pilot's technical execution, including the integration testing between FHIR and X-Road.

Meddyg's role in the demonstration

  • Architecture: we designed how the participating institutions' systems would connect under the X-Road and OpenHIE standards.
  • FHIR façade: we implemented the clinical-data translation layer to the HL7 FHIR standard through Kivú FHIR, so systems with different data models could "speak the same language."
  • Technical coordination: we led, together with Siftia and Esicom, the pilot's day-to-day technical execution.
  • Integration testing: we validated that the FHIR layer communicated correctly with the X-Road infrastructure.

Why interoperability matters

Today, much of Costa Rica's health information lives isolated within each institution. That fragmentation forces people to repeat tests, carry documents from one medical center to another, or wait while their records aren't available when they're needed most. Solving this is one of the main challenges facing modern health systems — and it's exactly the problem interoperability is meant to solve: making information follow the patient, no matter where they receive care.

How the technical solution works

The demonstration relied on two complementary pieces. On one side, X-Road, the data-exchange technology used in the project: a kind of digital "highway" for moving information between institutions without centralizing it. On the other, the open OpenHIE and HL7 FHIR standards, which ensure clinical data is shared in a common, traceable, auditable format. At Meddyg, we specifically worked on this second piece: the FHIR façade that translates each system's data into the international standard, and the tests that confirmed that layer communicated correctly with the X-Road infrastructure.

A public-private collaboration ecosystem

The exercise was made possible by GLCH's convening role, together with the Ministry of Science, Innovation, Technology and Telecommunications (MICITT), the National Digital Government Agency, public institutions and private-sector representatives. Jürgen Schosinsky, GLCH's executive director, summed up the significance of the exercise:

These tests show that the technological infrastructure allows information to be exchanged securely, reliably and traceably. This gives patients the assurance that, once they authorize the exchange of their medical information between different health institutions in the future, their data will be managed under high standards of security, privacy and integrity.

The initiative is part of a broader vision: building a national Health Information Exchange (HIE) in Costa Rica, with technical support from NIC Costa Rica, public-private partnership expertise from Fundación Aliarse, and private-sector coordination through the Cámara de Salud.

What's next for Meddyg

For Meddyg, this demonstration confirms something we work on every day: that health interoperability isn't a distant aspiration — it's a capability that can already be built with the right standards (FHIR, OpenHIE, and open architectures) and the right technical team. We'll keep supporting Costa Rica on its path toward a more connected, secure, people-centered digital health system.