In general, the electronic Prescription Service (ePrescription) consists of electronic prescribing and electronic dispensing:

• ePrescribing is defined as the electronic prescribing of medicine with the use of software by a legally authorized health professional and the electronic transmission of said prescription data to a pharmacy where the medicine can then be dispensed.
• eDispensing is defined as the electronic retrieval of a prescription and the dispensing of the medicine to the patient as indicated in the corresponding ePrescription. Once the medicine has been dispensed, the dispenser is to report the dispensation information using the ePrescription software.

The epSOS ePrescriptions electronically transmitted to pharmacies in epSOS partner countries contain the currently available ePrescriptions for the medications, i.e. all prescriptions that could also be dispensed in the patient’s home country at that moment. If a prescribed medical product is not available abroad, the attending pharmacist may, depending on the circumstances, dispense a different brand or package size of a comparable product to the patient.

The following map shows the countries testing ePrescription Services in the pilot phase: