3. Download the International Patient Summary (IPS)

Understanding the International Patient Summary (IPS)

The International Patient Summary (IPS) is a standardized, minimal, and non-exhaustive set of essential healthcare data for a patient, intended for use in unplanned cross-border care. It is designed to provide healthcare professionals with immediate access to critical patient information, enhancing continuity of care and patient safety.

For more detailed information and the complete specification, please refer to the FHIR IPS Implementation Guide.

Calling the $summary Endpoint on a Patient Resource

To comply with the FHIR IPS (International Patient Summary) implementation guide, you can call the $summary operation on a Patient resource. This operation provides a concise summary of the patient's record.

Request

The $summary operation is typically invoked using an HTTP GET request to the Patient resource with the patient's ID and the $summary operation appended to the URL.

HTTP Method: GET

Endpoint: [base]/Patient/{id}/$summary

Example Request:

GET /Patient/example-patient-id/$summary HTTP/1.1
Host: your-fhir-server.com
Accept: application/fhir+json

Replace example-patient-id with the actual ID of the patient you wish to summarize.

Response

A successful response will return a Patient resource or a Parameters resource containing the summarized patient information, conforming to the FHIR IPS specification. The exact content will depend on the implementation of the $summary operation.