Cross-border health data exchange now available with Spain
Starting from 3rd of August 2023 ePrescription and Patient Summary data exchange is open with Spain. Until now the cross-border ePrescription service has already been available with Finland, Poland, Croatia and Portugal.
From beginning of August it is now possible to buy out prescription medication in Spain with Estonian digital prescriptions and likewise, Spanish citizen have the possibility to buy out their prescription medication in Estonian pharmacies with their Spanish digital prescriptions. In addition to prescription data exchange, Estonian health care professionals are now able to view the Patient Summary documents of Spanish patients and also Estonians’ Patient Summaries can be viewed by Spanish health care professionals.
Patient Summary service is primarily meant to be used in emergency care situations and it will enable a health care professional in another country to get an overview of patients most important health information (for example diagnoses, allergies and medication summary). Patient Summary documents for Estonian patients can be viewed by health care professionals, who are using the service, in Luxemburg, Netherlands, France, Portugal and now Spain.
Most of the autonomous regions in Spain are connected to the cross-border data exchange service, but there are a few regions, which are yet to join (La Rioja, Balearic Islands, Asturias and Murcia regions). The website of Health and Welfare Information Systems Centre (TEHIK) (https://www.tehik.ee/en/cross-border-data-exchange) provides additional information on the pharmacies or health care organisations where the service is available.
Additional countries will join the service continuously and the plan for the upcoming years is to have the cross-border health data exchange available in 25 European countries. Currently the preparations are ongoing so that in the fall of 2023 health data exchange in Estonia could be opened with Czech Republic, Malta, Greece and Cyprus.
In order to join the cross-border health data exchange, countries need to establish a digital readiness and to interface their local systems to the European platform, which ensures a secure data exchange. The platform is developed and maintained by European Commission in collaboration with all member states. In Estonia, the cross-border health data exchange service is developed and maintained by TEHIK.