EU Health Data API
1.0.0-ballot - ballot 150

EU Health Data API, published by HL7 Europe. This guide is not an authorized publication; it is the continuous build for version 1.0.0-ballot built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) CI Build. This version is based on the current content of https://github.com/euridice-org/eu-health-data-api/ and changes regularly. See the Directory of published versions

Health Professional Access Service

Overview

A Health Professional Access Service (Art. 12) is provided by a Member State to health professionals for accessing their patients' health data. The service can be delivered as a web portal, an API, or other means. It authenticates the professional, locates the patient, and accesses data from EHR systems. The infrastructure behind these services is country-specific — see Member State Architectures.

Scope

This IG defines the Interoperability Component API surface the access service can use to query EHR systems. Requirements for the access service itself — including how the professional authenticates (e.g., eIDAS), how the patient is selected, and how queries are routed across EHR systems — are governed by Member State requirements and are out of scope here.

Participants

Workflow

  1. Health professional authenticates to the access service
  2. Service identifies the patient (see Patient Lookup)
  3. Service queries EHR systems for documents and/or resources
  4. Professional reviews the retrieved data

The service may query EHR systems directly, through national infrastructure that federates queries, or through a combination — see Cross-Organization via National Infrastructure.

Authorization

The professional's identity and authorization are established at the access service. At the Interoperability Component API surface, the consumer is an authorized system-to-system caller; the mechanism — for example SMART Backend Services credentials issued by a national authorization server — is described in Authorization.