We measure our impact by the health data, digital tools, and opportunity we are able to put within reach.

A smartphone screen displays the SMART Health Card Verifier app scanning a QR code on a SMART Health Card. Three status messages surround the phone: a green checkmark with 'Verified,' an orange exclamation with 'Issuer Not Recognized,' and a red cross with 'Not Verified.' The background is blue with circular patterns.

The Problem: Health Data Access Gap

Health data is one of the most valuable assets in a person’s life, yet is one of the hardest to access and use. Records are scattered across providers, payers, pharmacies, labs, devices, and even today, still locked in paper-based systems.

Health data flows are often designed around institutions, not people. This makes it difficult for individuals to access, manage, and share their own information when it matters. The result is preventable harm, wasted spending, and a system that does not work for the people who need it most.

Stacks of thick paper documents with numerous yellow and white sticky tabs on a table in an office setting.

Our Solution: Person Centered Digital Health, Backed by Research

1. Better care starts with a complete patient history

When providers have access to a more complete longitudinal record, research shows they can reduce duplicate testing, avoid unnecessary imaging, lower emergency department and hospital utilization, and make better-informed care decisions.

Illustration showing a continuous patient history record shared by five providers to avoid duplicate tests, with icons of document pages connected by a timeline and text emphasizing 'Duplicate test avoided' and 'Five providers, one continuous record.'

2. Health data should follow the person across every care setting

When patients can access and share their existing health records, they help close information gaps across fragmented care settings. Research suggests that giving people access to their own health information can improve understanding, perceived control, communication, and continuity of care, especially in systems where records do not reliably follow the person.

3. Valuable health information is generated beyond the clinic

Health does not only happen inside hospitals and provider offices. Today only a small portion of health data is created within health systems. Patients generate valuable health information every day, through symptoms, medications, home monitoring, wearables, patient-reported outcomes, and other signals.

Diagram showing health data flow: a house icon representing health systems with a dotted line indicating a small portion of data, and icons for symptoms, medications, home monitoring, and wearables representing data generated everywhere else daily, all merging into a single record icon labeled 'One record'.

How we Pursue Our Mission

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Develop and Promote Open Standards

We help author and advance standards that enable the flow of health data: HL7, FHIR, SMART Health Cards, SMART Health Links, and the International Patient Summary.

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Convene Global Stakeholders

We co-lead, co-found, and participate in multistakeholder coalitions that turn standards into reality: Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI), the CARIN Alliance, the CommonTrust Network, and the JupyterHealth community.

Blue computer mouse icon with a red scroll wheel and a connected padlock symbol inside it, surrounded by a dashed circular outline.

Build Technology and Services

We build open, privacy-preserving products and services that put real, usable health data in people's hands today.

Icon of three horizontal blue rectangles stacked vertically inside a dashed blue circle, with a small diamond shape inside each rectangle and a horizontal red line above the top rectangle.

Strengthen Digital Health Infrastructure

Our standards, technology, and partnerships work together to help public institutions, health systems, and local implementers identify gaps and put the tools, workforce, and enabling conditions in place for person-centered digital health at scale.

Examples: Our Mission in Practice

CommonHealth makes personal health data more accessible
Free, openly available, and built for Android, the operating system used by most smartphone owners worldwide. The app helps people bring health records from across their providers into one place. Their information is stored only on their phone, and The Commons Project cannot access it. People can review and use their records for their own care, with confidence that their health data is shared only when, where, and with whom they choose.
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‍SMART Health Card Verifier protects privacy by design
It works offline, requires no account, and verifies credentials directly on the device, so personal health information is never uploaded or shared.

‍JupyterHealth makes advanced health data tools available to everyone
Its permissive BSD license allows any health system, university, researcher, or developer to use, adapt, and build upon the technology without licensing fees. It also enables patient-generated data from wearables, home monitoring tools, and other sources, to be integrated into health records and the analyses clinicians and researchers use to better understand health and inform care.

‍KoraLink invests in the people who make digital health infrastructure work
In Rwanda, the program trains young people, predominantly young women and largely from rural communities, as KoraLink Agents in digital health literacy and entrepreneurship. Through a marketplace that connects training to income, agents expand access to health and digital services while building pathways to further certification, employment, and entrepreneurship.

‍We advance shared infrastructure that allows health data to move and be trusted
We contribute our work through standards organizations and collaborative initiatives including HL7, CARIN, Argonaut, and IEEE, rather than keeping it as proprietary intellectual property. Through the CommonTrust Network, we also provide the trust infrastructure needed to verify health data issuers, so records people carry can be checked and confidently accepted wherever they seek care.

Join us! Help put people at the center of health

Donate to advance our mission
‍Partner with us on our work

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You can obtain a copy of our most recently filed financial report from the Charities Bureau Registry on the New York Attorney General's website (www.charitiesnys.com) or by contacting us at: The Commons Project Foundation 745 5th Ave Ste 5, New York, NY 10151, or from the New York State Attorney General's Charities Bureau at: 28 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10005, (212) 416-8401. Information on charitable organizations can also be found at the New York State Attorney General's website (www.charitiesnys.com) or by calling (212) 416-8401.

DISCLAIMER: THE COMMONS PROJECT FOUNDATION (“TCP”) DOES NOT PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE OR ADMINISTER ANY DIAGNOSTIC MEDICAL TESTS, VACCINES OR OTHER HEALTHCARE INTERVENTIONS. TCP MAKES NO ENDORSEMENT OR REPRESENTATION AS TO THE ACCREDITATION, LICENSING OR GOOD-STANDING OF ANY HEALTHCARE PROVIDER UNDER APPLICABLE STATE, FEDERAL, NATIONAL OR SUPRANATIONAL LAWS AND REGULATIONS. TCP EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL LIABILITY FOR ANY CONSEQUENTIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY LOSS OF REVENUES OR PROFITS OR ANY LOSS OF USE OF DATA, ARISING OUT OF OR CONNECTED IN ANY WAY WITH ANY DIAGNOSTIC TESTING, MEDICAL TREATMENT, VACCINATION OR OTHER HEALTHCARE INTERVENTION OR OTHERWISE PROVIDED, SPONSORED, OR PROMOTED BY ANY CTN MEMBER, WHETHER PROVIDED BY THE MEMBER ITSELF OR BY ITS AFFILIATES, REPRESENTATIVES, AGENTS OR SUBCONTRACTORS.