Epic and Cerner have launched vaccine passports to help patients who use their EHRs to verify their vaccination status.
Seven things to know:
- Epic rolled out technology that serves as a digital vaccination verification by binding a person's identity with their vaccination or lab results and displaying it via QR codes on a smartphone.
- The new tech is live for 25 million patients, and 70 million to 80 million people will have access to it by the end of 2022. If online patient portal MyChart does not yet have a person's vaccine information, the patient can use the website to query a connected state immunization registry to get the data and generate a QR code.
- Epic said it plans to make the tech available beyond Wisconsin and is working with the Federal Aviation Administration as well as states including California and New York. Epic is also in talks with the White House, FDA and CDC about rolling out the tech, according to the report.
- The Vaccination Credential Initiative, which also features Epic and several other organizations, such as Cerner and the Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic, launched vaccine passports in August.
- The vaccine credential has a person's date of birth, the date they got their doses, the brand of vaccine and its lot number.
- For people without smartphones, the Vaccination Credential Initiative is exploring methods such as paper cards printed with QR codes, which can be validated electronically, the companies reported in February.
- The initiative was initially unveiled in January. Companies participating in the initiative include Mayo Clinic, Cerner, Epic, Microsoft, Salesforce, Change Healthcare and Oracle.