A prescription is a formal written instruction, issued by a licensed medical practitioner, authorizing a patient to receive a specific medication or treatment. It carves the act of professional authorization — specifying drug, dose, frequency, and duration — and persists through standardized formats (paper, electronic, verbal) that bridge the practitioner's expertise to the pharmacist's dispensing. The legal authority and professional accountability of the prescriber are essential parameters: without licensed authority, the instruction is not a prescription. [formal: praescriptio | substrate: behavior | horizon: hours | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.01]
Accepted ontology entry
prescription
A prescription is a formal written instruction, issued by a licensed medical practitioner, authorizing a patient to receive a specific medication or treatment. It carves the act of professional authorization — specifying drug, dose, freque…
Definition
Why it is in scope
A human-made regulatory and communicative artifact issued by a licensed practitioner to persist the authorized dispensing of specific medical interventions.
Names and aliases
- prescriptionen · CANONICAL
Relations from this entry
- cmredrvkw0019g8vu7t58pfa8SERVES →
prescription is designed for the practice of medicine: a doctor writes it to direct treatment, and pharmacies execute it to dispense medication. For whose sake? prescription→medicine.
- cmryhv1ck0102ekkxvvy9d8i7INSTANCE_OF →
A prescription is a specific kind of document — a formal written order for medication. A competent speaker would call a prescription 'a document'.
Relations to this entry
No accepted relations in this direction.
Record identity
- Created
- Jul 27, 2026, 8:05 PM UTC
- Content hash
- 8519cefdfce648fcc04269d498a493a87fe56569f0445589eb7a16167157c4af