Across Europe, fewer than one in three hospital pharmacies use automation. And even where robots or automated cabinets are installed, these systems rarely “talk” to each other.

As a result, pharmacists must rely on manual workarounds, costly custom interfaces, and fragile point-to-point connections that slow down projects, increase risks, and prevent automation from delivering its full potential.

To address this challenge, and inspired by the success of the DICOM standard in radiology, EAHP launched in 2024 the first multi-vendor Special Interest Group (SIG) dedicated to interoperability in pharmacy automation. This pan-European initiative unites hospital pharmacists and leading automation vendors around a simple yet ambitious goal :

→ to jointly develop a vendor-neutral communication protocol that enables seamless workflows between automation equipment from different suppliers.

Such a standard will simplify integration, reduce costs, and accelerate the deployment of safe, efficient automation in European hospital pharmacies.

In short, the SIG aims to create one language for all pharmacy robots, just as DICOM did for radiology.

Medication management is complex. Workflows vary significantly, not only between countries, but even between hospitals in the same region.

Trying to standardise everything at once would be unrealistic.

That is why the SIG adopted a pragmatic, step-by-step methodology starting from real-life pharmacy processes.

Phase 1: Defining the Blueprint and Building Blocks

Phase 1 was led by hospital pharmacists, ensuring the work reflected real hospital practice

1. Collecting use cases: More than 30 use cases were submitted by pharmacists and vendors.
2. Consolidating & prioritising:The group refined them into a small set of foundational workflows common to most European hospitals.
3. Drafting Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) : Pharmacists documented these workflows as standardised, vendor-neutral SOPs. These SOPs form the functional blueprint for how interoperable automation should work — independently of any vendor’s current interface.

Phase 2: Building the Protocol

In Phase 2, now underway, vendors are translating the SOPs into technical specifications.

• Defining precise messages, datasets, and rules for communication.
• Building on international standards. like HL7, FHIR, IHE, GS1, and ISO IDMP.
• Producing one harmonised protocol.

The goal is to converge on one vendor-neutral protocol that all compliant devices can implement.

From Real Workflows to a European Standard

Phase 1 answers:

“What does the ideal interoperable workflow look like in a real hospital?”

Phase 2 answers:

“Which messages and data elements are needed for devices to execute this workflow reliably, regardless of vendor?”

Once validated and tested, the EAHP protocol will be published as an open, public set of specifications that all vendors can implement. SOPs, specifications, harmonised message libraries will be made available to hospital pharmacists, IT teams, and industry.

The goal: a protocol that can be adopted, implemented, and required in tenders across Europe.

Key Milestones

Transparency is central to the SIG. Our progress is widely shared at EAHP events. See below for the indicative roadmap.

 See It Live: The 2026 Interoperability Showcase

The journey will culminate at the EAHP Congress 2026 in Barcelona, with a live Interoperability Showcase.

For the first time, robots from different vendors will execute the agreed workflows together, proving that plug-and-play pharmacy automation is achievable. 

Toward a European Standard

This initiative is laying the foundation for a European standard for interoperability in pharmacy automation.

Our ambition is clear: by 2026, enable hospital pharmacists to require compliance with this protocol in procurement, and vendors to deliver equipment that is “plug-and-play” compliant.

This means:

• Fewer custom and costly integrations
• Faster, simpler automation project deployments
• Safer, more reliable workflows
• More flexibility and vendor choice for hospitals

Looking Ahead : future SIGs

This is only the beginning.

While the first SIG focuses on the automation layer, future SIGs will expand to include software vendors, progressively addressing more complex workflows used in hospitals across Europe.

Step by step, the framework will grow toward fully interoperable closed-loop medication management.

Our ambition: leave a footprint in European hospital pharmacy, just as DICOM did for radiology!

Join the Journey

The EAHP Special Interest Group on Interoperability in Pharmacy Automation is shaping the future of medication management. Whether you are a hospital pharmacist, a healthcare IT professional, or an industry partner, we invite you to be part of the change.

🤝 Register your interest to join future SIGs
Help shape the next phases of European pharmacy interoperability.

🎤 Visit the Interoperability Showcase at EAHP 2026
See cross-vendor automation working live and meet the SIG contributors.

📩 Contact EAHP
Learn how your hospital or company can benefit from — or contribute to — the emerging interoperability standard.

This page gathers all publicly available materials produced by the SIG. Additional resources are added as they are produced.

Key Findings from Phase 1

• Start simple.
  The SIG began with non-patient-specific replenishment workflows. These are the most common, the least complex, and the easiest to standardise across devices and hospital environments.
• A universal pattern.
  Across all selected use cases, a recurring exchange emerged:
  a storage system and a dispensing system communicating through a basic request–response pattern:
  “I need X units of product Y — do you have it?” → “Yes, I will send it.”

This pattern appears regardless of vendor or equipment type.

• Building blocks for the future.
  This stripped-down “dispense order” exchange became the foundation layer of interoperability — a reusable set of roles and profiles that can be applied to increasingly complex workflows in future SIGs.

Available SOPs

• SOP 1.1 – Automated Replenishment of an ADC from a Whole Pack Robot
• SOP 1.2 – Automated Replenishment of a Unit Dose Robot from a Whole Pack Robot
• SOP 2.1 – Two-Step Replenishment Workflow: WPR → UDR → ADC

📧 Request access via the EAHP Secretariat

EAHP BOOST 2025 Presentation

The SIG co-chairs delivered the lecture:

“One Language for All Pharmacy Robots – How Interoperability Can Help Tackle Medicine Shortages.”

The session introduces the SIG’s goals, the Phase 1 outputs, and the roadmap toward EAHP 2026.

📥 Download the presentation (PDF)

More to Come

As the project progresses, this page will be expanded to include:

• technical specifications
• Implementation guidance
• Procurement guidance for hospitals
• Vendor conformance statements

Get Involved

📄 Request the SOPs to understand the foundational workflows.

🤝 Register your interest to join future SIGs
Contribute to the next phases of European interoperability.

🎤 Visit the Interoperability Showcase at EAHP 2026
See cross-vendor automation in action.

📩 Contact EAHP
Learn how your hospital or company can benefit from — or contribute to — the emerging protocol.

Led by Experienced Co-Chairs

The SIG is co-chaired by:

• Francine de Stoppelaar: hospital pharmacist with 20+ years of experience, who led the UK’s first fully automated closed-loop medicines management model at Cleveland Clinic London.
• Patrick Koch: international consultant in digital transformation of hospitals, radiology, and pharmacy automation, and founder of Peka Consulting.

Together, they bring both the clinical perspective and the interoperability expertise to drive this initiative forward.

Hospital Pharmacists

14 pharmacists from 12 European countries form the core of the SIG. They bring hands-on experience of managing daily operations and automation projects, ensuring the protocol reflects real-world needs.

Participants include:

Leading Automation Vendors

10 of Europe’s leading pharmacy automation vendors, representing over 80% of the market, are working side by side under EAHP’s umbrella. Competitors have joined forces to solve a shared problem for the benefit of patients and healthcare systems.

Participating vendors: