WHO Smart Vaccination Certificates -- RC1 draft for public comment

Just a reminder that the WHO is looking for constructive feedback by April 12.

Please visit this page to review the RC1 specification and provide feedback.

Thanks for highlighting this, Derek.

For those preparing to provide feedback, the WHO form collects some information about you and then has a page for each section of the document. On each page, you indicate what line numbers are of concern to you and then provide your feedback, in two separate response boxes. You can create an account and save your progress or prepare ahead so that you can enter all your responses in one run through.

Hi all -- and abject apologies for not having provided very many updates, lately. This post is not only my apology for that... but a little bit my explanation, too. For the last couple of months I've been working with a team at WHO, and alongside a collection of global experts working across 3 parallel work streams, to develop release candidate 1 (RC1 is a draft for public comment) of a Smart Vaccination Certificate (SVC) specification .

The SVC spec is intended to support use cases related to two key scenarios:

1. Continuity of Care -- A number of the COVID-19 vaccines require two doses (and possibly a booster to deal with new variants). The SVC is a "home based record" that supports the point of care workflows that will lead to successful vaccination across our populations.
2. Proof of Vaccination -- There are many use cases, within healthcare and also within the larger social fabric, where it is important for an individual to be able to show proof of having been vaccinated against COVID-19. This could become important for visiting care homes, for attending large gatherings, or (potentially) for being able to travel without incurring quarantine restrictions at the point of arrival. The SVC is also a verifiable credential that may be leveraged to prove that a person has received their shot(s).

The SVC spec describes use cases (including actors, settings, and data sharing patterns) and it describes the core data set, which is expressed as a FHIR implementation guide based on IHE's IPS Profile of the International Patient Summary standard. The spec also describes how a WHO-hosted Public Key Directory can be operationalized to support a global trust framework that will allow SVCs to be used across borders (note: this healthcare related trust framework will operate similarly to how the ICAO PKD supports the half billion ePassports that are supported by 140+ countries, worldwide).

The WHO SVC RC1 document is posted for public comment. There is a feedback form on the WHO website. Please -- we Canadians represent some of the most well-regarded health informatics experts in the world -- and it will be of huge value if we can help WHO refine this specification in preparation for its v1 release in a couple of months time. I encourage community members to share around the link to the WHO SVC spec and to comment on this draft. SVCs will play a role in helping all of us... across the globe... emerge from COVID-19 and start re-opening our economies, interacting with each other, and engaging as social creatures, again.