SMART Health Cards and Links IG
1.0.0 - STU 1 International flag

This page is part of the SMART Health Cards and Links FHIR IG (v1.0.0: STU1) based on FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) R4. This is the current published version. For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions

Home Page

Official URL: http://hl7.org/fhir/uv/smart-health-cards-and-links/ImplementationGuide/hl7.fhir.uv.smart-health-cards-and-links Version: 1.0.0
IG Standards status: Trial-use Maturity Level: 4 Computable Name: SMARTHealthCardsandLinks

Overview

Paper medical records–such as vaccination histories and insurance cards–are easily lost or damaged, are difficult to authenticate, and are often not on-hand when they’re needed.

SMART Health Cards and Links are FHIR-based standards that address these challenges, enabling individuals to receive their health information and share it with others in a tamper-proof and verifiable digital form. The standards can also be used to share information that doesn't need to be verified by the receiver. They provide a digital version of an individual's clinical information that can be kept at the ready and easily shared with others when the need arises–using a QR code, mobile app or web browser.

Together SMART Health Cards and Links provide options that support multiple goals–from keeping a small amount of verifiable medical information close by to authorizing a trusted party to access their entire medical record. They empower individuals with secure, equitable, and privacy-preserving access to their clinical information.

Examples of what an individual can do using these standards include:

  • receive proof of critical immunizations on a physical card or in a mobile app and allow others to verify them by scanning the attached QR code
  • using a SMART Health Link to transmit their member ID when checking in at their doctor's office
  • send an elementary school a link to their child's immunization history, allowing the school to verify the information with the immunization registry and copy in the details if it wishes
  • receive a "ticket" to access the results of a lab test when they're ready
  • give a provider time-limited or ongoing access to some or all of their medical data, including the ability to search
  • scan a prescription bottle to receive the full prescription details.

IG Organization

The implementation guide is organized into two sections:

  • SMART Health Links describes the protocol that enables storage and sharing of more information than can be kept on a single SMART Health Card (using cloud storage) and provides additional sharing options including limited-time access, long-term sharing of data that can evolve over time, and protecting access with a PIN that can be communicated to the recipient out-of-band. This section contains:

  • FHIR Artifacts contains FHIR resource profiles and logical models referenced from the SMART Health Cards and SMART Health Links sections.

  • Change Log identifies specification changes present in this version of the implementation guide.

In addition, there is a glossary of related terms and abbreviations used throughout the guide.

Referenced Specifications

This implementation guide relies on the following external specifications:

Contributing

The Verifiable Clinical Information (VCI) coalition convened the original consensus group that started the work that led to this implementation guide. The Argonaut Project and CARIN Alliance were also key contributors.

Sponsoring HL7 Workgroup

FHIR Infrastructure

Authors

Editor: Josh Mandel jmandel@gmail.com
Assisting author: Frank McKinney fm@frankmckinney.com
Publishing lead: Mark Roberts mark.roberts@leavittpartners.com

Dependencies

IGPackageFHIRComment
.. SMART Health Cards and Links IGhl7.fhir.uv.smart-health-cards-and-links#1.0.0R4
... HL7 Terminology (THO)hl7.terminology.r4#6.5.0R4Automatically added as a dependency - all IGs depend on HL7 Terminology
.... FHIR Extensions Packhl7.fhir.uv.extensions.r4#5.2.0R4

Package hl7.fhir.uv.extensions.r4#5.2.0

This IG defines the global extensions - the ones defined for everyone. These extensions are always in scope wherever FHIR is being used (built Mon, Feb 10, 2025 21:45+1100+11:00)

Cross Version Analysis

This is an R4 IG. None of the features it uses are changed in R4B, so it can be used as is with R4B} systems. Packages for both R4 (hl7.fhir.uv.smart-health-cards-and-links.r4) and R4B (hl7.fhir.uv.smart-health-cards-and-links.r4b) are available.

Global Profiles

There are no Global profiles defined

IP Statements

This publication includes IP covered under the following statements.