This document defines the core data set for a patient summary document that supports continuity of care for a person and coordination of healthcare. It is specifically aimed at supporting the use case scenario for ‘unplanned, cross border care’ and is intended to be an international patient summary (IPS). The data set is minimal and non-exhaustive, providing a robust, well-defined core set of data items. This tight focus on the use case enables the IPS to also be used in planned care, and for both unplanned and planned care to be supported by this data set within local and national contexts, thereby increasing its utility and value.

It uses the European Guideline from the eHN as the initial source for the patient summary requirements but takes into consideration other international efforts so as to provide an interoperable data set specification for global application.

This IPS standard provides an abstract definition of a Patient Summary from which derived models are implementable. Due to its nature therefore, readers should be aware that the compliance with this standard doesn’t imply automatic technical interoperability; this result, enabled by this standard, can be reached with the conformity to standards indicated in the associated technical specification and implementation guides.

This international standard does not cover workflow processes of data entry, data collection, the summarization act itself, nor subsequent data presentation, nor assimilation, nor aggregation.

It is not an implementation guide that is concerned with the various technical layers beneath the application layer. Implementation guidance for specifically jurisdictional concerns, e.g. Directives, terminologies, formats etc., is specified in the associated Technical Specification (CEN/TS 17288).

In particular, representation by various coding schemes, additional structures and terminologies are not part of this standard. Terminology and its binding are addressed in the associated Technical Specification (CEN/TS 17288). The Identification of Medicinal Products standards (abbreviated to IDMP) are the recommended target for the Medication Summary related to this standard but, prior to IDMP’s full implementation in practice, this IPS standard cannot insist in its use at this point in time and recognizes that interim schemes may be necessary until IDMP becomes established as a norm.