This page is part of the EU Health Data API (v1.0.0-ballot: STU1 Ballot 1) based on FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) R4. This is the current published version in its permanent home (it will always be available at this URL). For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions

Use Case - Cross-Border via NCP

Overview

Health information is exchanged across borders through National Contact Points (NCPs) using the MyHealth@EU network.

How Cross-Border Exchange Works

NCPs communicate with each other via the MyHealth@EU network. When a patient from Country A needs care in Country B:

1. Country B's healthcare facility requests data through their NCP
2. NCPs exchange data over MyHealth@EU
3. Country A's NCP queries national infrastructure to retrieve the patient's data

This IG enables the final step: Country A's national infrastructure (or the NCP itself) acts as a Consumer to query EHR systems that are Access Providers.

Actor Groupings

• NCP or National Infrastructure acts as Document Consumer (according to Grouping Example 1, 1b, 1c or 2) or Resource Consumer (according to Grouping Example 3)
• EHR systems act as Document Access Provider or Resource Access Provider accordingly

Architecture

Country B Facility → NCP-B → MyHealth@EU → NCP-A → National Infrastructure → EHR System API
                                                                              ↑
                                                                    This IG defines this API

Role of This Specification

All layers exchange EEHRxF-formatted data to ensure semantic interoperability.

Authorization Context

• Patient consent for cross-border access
• Healthcare professional authentication in requesting country
• Authorization decisions at NCP, national infrastructure, and EHR system levels