Purpose of epSOS

The main approach of epSOS is to define services for a pan-European electronic patient summary and ePrescription.

Nine specific goals for the project have been outlined:

1. Agreement on a dataset describing the accepted terms of patient summaries, as well as the minimum data set required for countries to connect to the services;
2. Agreement on a basic dataset and other requirements for ePrescriptions;
3. Agreement on a minimum set of requirements to access this information taking  the needs of the various constituencies, such as citizens, healthcare professionals, and healthcare provider organisations into account;
4. Design, implementation and testing of a practical technical solution for confidentiality and security requirements in a ‘laboratory’ setting;
5. Demonstrate the practical implementation of the solution - in compliance with confidentiality and security requirements; in numerous settings as well as participating states
6. Evaluation of the results following their practical implementation;
7. Demonstration of the ability to access information in compliance with relevant confidentiality and security requirements, in particular including the guidelines of the European Data Protection Directive and any other formally agreed upon amendments based on Article 29 Working Party;
8. Selection and usage of relevant interoperability standards.
9. Advise on implementation methods, which can be replicated in all other member states,.

By fulfilling these goals, epSOS creates building blocks for the future unification of the European Information Space and considerably increases the innovation potential of European enterprises, especially that of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The project will also include various generic elements, such as  project management, communication, dissemination, quality control, and evaluation, which are not directly linked to the goals mentioned above. All necessary elements of the pilot project are described in the work plan.