HL7 Europe Medication Prescription and Dispense, published by HL7 Europe. This guide is not an authorized publication; it is the continuous build for version 1.0.0 built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) CI Build. This version is based on the current content of https://github.com/hl7-eu/mpd/ and changes regularly. See the Directory of published versions

Background

Crossborder initiative: from epSOS to MyHealth@EU

The history of European collaboration in the health space is long and even predates the epSOS project (2008-2014). The epSOS project worked on the development, piloting and evaluation of the first cross-border eHealth services.

This long journey resulted in the first operational cross-border services for Patient Summary and ePrescription based on the HL7 CDA R2.0 standard in 2019 (see here for the current MyHealth@EU CDA-based specifications). The service was initially activated in a few countries and progressively extended on a voluntary basis. These services are maintained by MyHealth@EU, formerly known as eHDSI (CEF).

While the crossborder ePrescription and eDispensation services continue to operate using HL7 CDA for the near future, the new services in MyHealth@EU already use HL7 FHIR, and the existing services will adopt HL7 FHIR in the future.

eHealth Network guidelines

The first version of the eHealth Network Guideline on ePrescription and eDispensation of Authorised Medicinal Products was published in 2014. The third release of this guideline was published in June 2022.

The data sets in eHealth Network guidelines do not include information on cardinality or data types. The data sets have been revised and enhanced by the Xt-EHR project, and the mappings to these logical models are provided in the Logical Models page. Deviations from the eHN guidelines are explained in Xt-EHR project deliverables.

European Health Data Space

The EHDS regulation lists ePrescription and eDispensation as priority categories of personal electronic health data (Article 14).

According to the regulation, technical specifications for data exchange (EEHRxF or the Format) shall be created, taking into consideration that the exchange format may have different profiles for use at the level of EHR systems and at the level of the national contact points for crossborder data exchange (see Recital 26).

This implementation guide serves as the less restricted specification, suitable for adapting for national use cases. More restricted specification for crossborder data exchange may be derived from this implementation guide. National contact points are responsible for transformation when needed.

While the owner of the EHDS specifications will be the European Commission, the current IG is the result of cooperation among different EU projects working on the preparation and implementation of EHDS specifications. The requirements are likely to change slightly in the final implementing act of Article 15, which will trigger a revision of this implementation guide.