myVaccine Record (Colorado Digital Immunization Card)
An HL7 FHIR digital immunization card plus a human-readable card, inside the digital ID Coloradans already carried, for under $500K
The problem
In 2021 states were spending millions on standalone vaccination-verification apps, most of which never earned public trust or adoption. A useful vaccine record had to work two ways at once: machine-verifiable for systems that check it, and readable at a glance by a person at a door.
What I did
Instead of building a new app, we partnered with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) to build myVaccine Record directly into myColorado, the digital ID residents already carried. Records flowed from the state immunization registry into an HL7 FHIR-standard digital immunization credential, so the data followed the healthcare interoperability standard rather than a proprietary format. Alongside it, we shipped a human-readable companion card that anyone could check without a scanner or special app.
Impact
Arguably the best digital immunization card any state shipped. Colorado delivered statewide vaccination verification for under $500K, a fraction of what comparable states spent, and adoption was immediate because it lived inside an app with hundreds of thousands of existing users. myVaccine Record won the Colorado Technology Association's 2022 APEX Award for Tech Project of the Year.