US Public Health Profiles Library, published by HL7 International / Public Health. This guide is not an authorized publication; it is the continuous build for version 2.0.0 built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) CI Build. This version is based on the current content of https://github.com/HL7/fhir-us-ph-library/ and changes regularly. See the Directory of published versions

Home Page

Official URL: http://hl7.org/fhir/us/ph-library/ImplementationGuide/hl7.fhir.us.ph-library				Version: 2.0.0
IG Standards status: Trial-use Active as of 2025-12-23			Maturity Level: 3	Computable Name: USPublicHealthProfilesLibrary
Other Identifiers: OID:2.16.840.1.113883.4.642.40.58

This STU 2 update to the US Public Health Profiles Library aligns with US Core Implementation Guide 6.1.0 (US Core) and USCDI+ Public Health Case Reporting use case. For a complete list of changes in this version, please refer to the Change Log.

Overview

The US Public Health Profiles Library (USPHPL) is a collection of reusable architecture and content profiles representing common public health concepts and patterns. It aligns with the USCDI+ Public Health Public Health initiative and is intended as a complement to the US Core Implementation Guide 6.1.0 (US Core) to ease implementation burden of healthcare organizations, electronic health record companies, public health agencies, and others involved in the US public health endeavor.

The USCDI+ Public Health use case dataset is designed to address core data and interoperability for public health needs in the United States, beyond the scope of USCDI. USCDI+ for public health intends to establish a list of data elements that support public health transactions, use cases and related implementation guides for public health authorities across jurisdictions. The USCDI+ Public Health Case Reporting use case extends the USCDI standard to address the specific data needs of public health case reporting. It focuses on enabling the exchange of critical information from clinical providers to public health agencies to support case investigation and patient follow-up.

The US Public Health Profiles Library is instituted in close conjunction with US Core and has an analogous process for implementation, moderation, review, and approval. US Core profiles will be re-used wherever possible and profiles will only be added to the library that are required for common public health needs. The library will evolve over time including developing and informational profiles for public health use.

Background

After evaluation and harmonization analysis of large multi-condition and multi-use case public health projects including Electronic Case Reporting (eCR), it was determined that there are many common elements shared across implementation guides (IGs).

To avoid defining the same profiles multiple times, we have created the US Public Health Profiles Library for use by Public Health and other FHIR standards development efforts to define appropriate FHIR profiles, value sets, etc., once, and allow them to be referenced by any implementation guides. This USPHPL provides a starting point and framework for inclusion in multiple implementation guides focused on the exchange of Public Health information to support interoperability among public health systems and reduce provider and implementer burden.

Scope

The short-term scope of this library includes elements common to the above-mentioned FHIR IGs and those contained in the USCDI+ Public Health Case Reporting use case. The longer-term scope includes analysis and inclusion of data elements from other Public Health use cases.

The USPHPL provides requirements and guidance for using FHIR for public health use cases. The profiles in this implementation guide will be used to meet the following objectives:

• Encouraging consistent access and use of data for public health applications across organizations and between healthcare systems
• Providing guidance for consistent use of vocabularies and value sets

See also Principles and Criteria of Library Inclusion and Use.

How to Read This Guide

This Guide is divided into several pages which are listed at the top of each page in the menu bar.

• Home: Introduction and background for HL7 FHIR® US Public Health Profiles Library
• Guidance: Information on the library's relation to US Core, conformance, principles and criteria of library profiles inclusion and use of the included profiles
• Mappings: Mapping tables showing how each FHIR profile in the library corresponds to applicable USCDI+ Public Health data elements
• Downloads: Links to downloadable artifacts
• Artifact Index: A list of the FHIR artifacts (profiles, examples, value sets, and code systems) defined as part of this guide
• Change Log: Changes between releases

Relationship to Other IGs

This implementation guide (IG) builds on and aligns with several related FHIR implementation guides that define foundational or domain-specific expectations relevant to public health data exchange. The following guides provide profiles, value sets, and structural patterns that are referenced directly in USPHPL profiles or appear in the USCDI+ Public Health Case Reporting relationship mapping table.

Implementation Guide	Version	Dependency
US Core 6.1.0	6.1.0	Where possible, all profiles in this IG are derived from US Core 6.1.0. U.S. Core also sets expectations for a variety of referenced resources and establishes baseline conformance expectations.
HL7 FHIR R4	R4	In some cases, where profiles cannot be derived from US Core, base FHIR resources are used.
Occupational Data for Health (ODH)	1.3.0	ODH defines structured representations for occupational and industry history, exposure information, and related concepts essential to several public health workflows. Where USCDI+ Public Health Case Reporting elements align with ODH concepts, the mapping table references ODH profiles.
Birth and Fetal Death Reporting (BFDR)	2.0	BFDR provides authoritative FHIR structures for birth, fetal death, and related vital records data. When USCDI+ Public Health Case Reporting elements overlap with concepts defined in BFDR, the mapping table references BFDR profiles to ensure consistency across public health reporting domains.
Electronic Case Reporting (eCR) IG – FHIR Electronic Initial Case Report (eICR)	2.1.2	The FHIR eICR transaction relies on and reuses profiles from the US Public Health Profiles Library. The eCR IG is maintained in close coordination with both the USPHPL and the HL7 CDA R2 Electronic Initial Case Report (eICR) Standard for Trial Use (STU) IG.
FHIR Clinical Documents	1.0.0	This FHIR IG is a starting point for a specification or a composition of a FHIR Clinical Document.

This IG may reference additional implementation guides as USCDI+ Public Health use cases evolve or as related IGs introduce profiles and patterns relevant to public health interoperability. Alignment with these guides supports reuse, reduces duplicative modeling, and promotes consistent representation of shared public health data elements across the FHIR ecosystem.

Other Information

HL7 FHIR Implementation Guide: US Public Health Profiles Library(Product Brief)

This guide is compliant with FHIR Release 4.

For Clinical Safety Information please refer to the FHIR Implementer’s Safety Checklist.

Disclaimer: All proprietary documents, guides, guidance, standards, codes, and values contained herein remain the property of their respective Standards Developing Organization (SDO). HL7 does not make any claim to ownership herein.