Frequently Asked Questions

What is the REP Number™?

The REP Number™ is a portable, scheme-issued identifier for an individual certified under the HWASC ISO/IEC 17024 personnel-certification scheme as competent in Hospital Competency at the function-based, exam-verified level. Format: ten alphanumeric characters in three hyphen-separated groups (XXXX-XXXX-XX) drawn from Crockford Base32 (no I, L, O, U).

What is the Company Number™?

The Company Number™ is the corresponding identifier for a manufacturer, distributor, vendor, or service organisation certified under the HWASC ISO/IEC 17065 organisational scheme. Format: eight alphanumeric characters in two groups (YYYY-YYYY).

How is verification different from a badge from my employer?

An employer-issued badge attests that the employer believes the person is competent. A REP Number™ verification attests that an independent ISO/IEC 17024 certification body has confirmed Hospital Competency through a standardized exam and is currently maintaining the record. The verification is portable across employers, queryable in real time, and survives the person changing companies.

Can I look up someone without their permission?

Anyone with a REP Number™ can verify it on the public site. The public response includes only the minimum needed for verification: status, masked display name (first name + last initial unless the individual has opted in to full-name display), personnel category, sponsoring Company, currency dates, and last-updated timestamp. No DOB, no contact information, no address.

What does "Active — sponsoring company flagged" mean?

The individual's own certification status is Active, but the sponsoring Company's status is not Active. This is the Cascade Principle in action. A hospital seeing this state should pause the encounter and contact scheme operations or the Company directly.

What does Suspended mean?

The individual is not currently authorised under HVC. The public surface shows the category of suspension (for example, documentation lapse or complaint under review) but never narrative reason text. Contact the sponsoring company for status; contact scheme operations through the Report-a-Discrepancy form if you believe the suspension is wrong.

What does Inactive mean?

The individual's certification has lapsed — either reached its effective-through date without renewal, or voluntarily withdrawn. No misconduct is implied. Recertification is the path back to Active.

What does Revoked mean?

The individual's certification has been formally withdrawn by HWASC under the scheme's revocation procedures. Revocation is the strongest status; restoration requires a scheme appeal.

I scanned a QR code months ago. Is it still good?

The QR code embedded on a verification page is a pointer to the live record, not a static credential. Every scan resolves to the current status. If a printed badge or PDF carries a QR, scanning it returns whatever the registry says today — not what it said the day the QR was printed.

How long does the lookup take?

On a mid-range mobile on 4G, the verification page renders in well under two seconds at the 75th percentile.

How fresh is the data I see?

The verification endpoint caches at the edge for up to 30 seconds with a 60-second stale-while-revalidate window. A status change made in admin propagates to the public surface within that window. The result page shows the last-updated timestamp.

Can a hospital pull bulk verifications?

The public surface is single-record lookup only. Bulk verification and webhook subscription are authenticated-API features available to hospitals and vendor credentialing organisations under a usage agreement. Contact us through the For Hospitals & VCOs page.

What if I see a record that looks wrong?

Use the Report-a-Discrepancy form. Do not include any patient identifying information in the description — the form rejects submissions containing obvious PHI patterns and the registry does not accept PHI under any circumstance.

How do scheme operators sign in?

HVC scheme operators authenticate against the HWASC organisation's Microsoft Entra (Azure AD) tenant. There is no shared password; each operator signs in with their own account, and every administrative action writes an audit row carrying their immutable Azure AD object id. Manufacturers' Instructions-for-Use (IFU) documents live in a private Azure Blob container; viewing them requires a short-lived signed URL issued by HVC, and each issuance is itself audited.

How does an individual representative register?

A certified individual signs in via the public portal at /portal → Individual Representative using Google, Microsoft, or work-email + one-time passcode. After signing in they link their Prometric exam by entering their Prometric candidate id and access code. On a Prometric pass, HVC issues a unique non-sequential REP Number™ and binds it to the rep's identity provider account. The exam result flows from Prometric directly to HVC; the rep's employer is never in the path.

How do sponsoring companies use HVC?

A scheme operator pre-registers the company and adds the first Company admin email. The admin signs in at /portal → Sponsoring Company. From the Company portal they maintain a Products catalog (devices and instrument systems), invite reps via single-use magic-link emails, and approve, reject, or revoke rep authorisations. Every decision is recorded in the audit log with the admin's identity. When a Company's status changes (Suspended, Withdrawn, Revoked), the Cascade Principle propagates to every linked rep's public verification response within 30 seconds.

How do hospitals use HVC?

A scheme operator pre-registers the hospital and adds the first Hospital admin email. The admin signs in at /portal → Hospital. The Hospital portal is read-only: admins search authorised reps by Company and Product, see each rep's current authorisation status, and open a chronological audit view of any authorisation (request → approve / reject → revoke). Hospitals cannot mutate any record; attempts to do so return 403 and are audit-logged. The same data feeds the public single-record lookup at /verify so a vendor desk can verify a rep in seconds.

How do I become an admin for my company or hospital?

There are two paths.

Nomination (operator-initiated). A scheme operator pre-registers the entity in HVC and nominates the first admin by binding an email, Google sub, or Microsoft object id to it. The nominated person signs in at /portal and lands directly in the Company or Hospital portal.

Request (user-initiated). If your entity already exists in HVC but no one has nominated you, sign in at /portal → Request admin access. Choose Company or Hospital, enter the Company Number™ or Hospital Number™, and write a short justification. A scheme operator reviews every request. They can approve (which immediately writes your admin binding), request more information (you get an email and respond), or reject with a reason. You can see all your requests at /portal/my-requests. Submissions are rate-limited to ten per IP per hour and your identity is never revealed to anyone except the reviewing operator.

The /api/portal/admin-status endpoint only ever reveals { exists, hasAdmin } — no admin names, emails, or identifiers ever leak through this surface, by contract.

I admin multiple companies or hospitals — how do I switch?

Common for subsidiary structures. When the same identity is bound to more than one Company (or Hospital), the portal header shows a switcher dropdown. Selecting a different entity writes the hvc.current.company (or hvc.current.hospital) cookie, refreshes the page, and every subsequent server-rendered query reads that cookie to pick the active record. The cookie is HttpOnly, scoped to your session, and self-corrects if it points at an entity you're no longer bound to. Every switch is audit-logged with action company.switch or hospital.switch.

What happens if an admin leaves?

A scheme operator can remove an admin binding from /admin/companies/<n> or /admin/hospitals/<n> (one click per binding). Removing the last admin requires explicit force=true confirmation and emits a distinct audit action (company.admin_removed_last / hospital.admin_removed_last) so the gap is visible. Until a new admin is nominated or a request is approved, the entity exists in HVC but no one can sign in to manage it; public verifications continue to work normally.

What sign-in providers are supported?

Three: Google OAuth, Microsoft OAuth (single-tenant in production, multi-tenant in dev), and work email + 6-digit one-time passcode delivered via Resend. All three converge on the same HMAC-signed session cookie with an 8-hour TTL. Each audience (Operator, Rep, Company admin, Hospital admin) is gated by binding an identity to the appropriate record; a session issued for one audience never grants access to another.

What standards does HVC operate under?

HVC operates under HWASC's ISO/IEC 17024 personnel-certification scheme and ISO/IEC 17065 organisational scheme. The Job Task Analysis underlying the exam is re-validated at least every five years.