Estonia's digital prescription now valid at pharmacies in Cyprus

Cyprus has become the latest country where Estonia's digital prescription system can be used, according to Estonia's Health and Welfare Information System Centre. As a result, Estonian residents can now buy medication at Cypriot pharmacies using prescriptions issued digitally in Estonia, while Cypriot residents can use their own country's e-prescriptions while in Estonia.

The process for dispensing prescription medicine in Cyprus mirrors the one used in Estonia: customers present an ID card or passport at the pharmacy, and the pharmacist then looks up the digital prescription in the electronic system using the person's personal identification code.

Medical data sharing also begins

Beyond digital prescriptions, Estonia and Cyprus have now started exchanging certain categories of patients' medical information. If an Estonian resident needs medical care while in Cyprus, healthcare staff there will be able to access treatment-relevant information, such as the patient's current medications, allergies, diagnoses and medical history. This information is presented to the healthcare worker in their own native language.

Before traveling, people are advised to check on the Health Portal that their required prescription is valid and that cross-border access to their medical data has not been restricted. Not all medications can be purchased using a cross-border prescription — narcotic and psychotropic drugs, for instance, cannot be obtained this way. It's also possible that a medicine prescribed in Estonia is not sold in another country, or is sold there under a different name.

Last year, Estonian residents used their digital prescriptions to buy medication abroad more than 5,000 times; this year the figure has already exceeded 4,200. Estonia's digital prescription currently works in Cyprus, Finland, Croatia, Portugal, Poland, Spain, Greece, Lithuania, Latvia and the Czech Republic.