Start the clock. The Vaccine Credential Initiative (VCI) will show how far we've come with interoperability.

Rewind three years. The idea that Cerner and Epic would participate in anything together, at least anything that was more than just a CYA announcement would be unheard of. Now they are both in on VCI.

More on VCI.

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FTA

Participating organizations will agree to offer individuals with digital access to their vaccination records using the open, interoperable SMART Health Cards specification based on W3C Verifiable Credential and HL7 FHIR standards, according to VCI.

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This will be a great test. The urgency created by the pandemic, coupled with the progress on interoperability fueled by FHIR and 21st Century Cures are coming together. Now we get to see what can happen when all players have a shared will to make something happen.

The speed and proliferation of a solution will tell us if we are on the right path and give us a metric by which to measure all future interoperability efforts by these players.