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The Board of Pharmacy definition for:  "Dispense" means preparing and packaging a prescription drug or device in a container and labeling the container with information required by State and federal law.

This seems to make provision a more generic (e.g., parent) concept compared to dispensing. Provision might apply to over-the-counter drugs for which no prescription is required.

Dispensing is reasonably clear (or so we think...), but provision we would not know how to translate (more than literally). Drug terminology is typically very precise. Could the requester provide English definitions of the health-care use of these terms? We have other infrastructure to record and communicate this information (e.g. messages for dispensing), so we would likely not need these concepts.

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2020-05-20 update: The Ontario jurisdiction uses the provincial drug repository (DHDR)  and the term "dispense" is used. The Ontario Medication Dispense Category can include Product (drugs or device) or Service (professional services) but not using SNOMED CT concepts at this time. In FHIR, there is MedicationDispense profile that might be used in FHIR in future. Dispensing is definitely used with regards to meds so they think it might of value to keep in the sub- hierarchy under provision.

In the UK, the natural usage of the term ‘dispensing’ includes the need to have a ‘prescription’ first. So an optician dispenses spectacles against the optical prescription. A pharmacist (or dispensing doctor) dispenses medication against a prescription written by a prescriber. Provision, does not include the 'concept' of a prescription, and would not specifically require a prescription first. We concur with the US comment that dispensing requires a level of individualisation to the patient, such as labelling for that specific patient.

We would also agree that 'dispensing' is a subtype of 'provision' - they are not duplicates. Dispense is more specific and whilst you can provide medication, not all provision of medication is by dispensing. For example if the Dr tells you to go to the pharmacy and buy some medication (all without a prescription) then that medication is sold / supplied / provided by the Pharmacy, but not dispensed. Likewise, the 'fixed magnification' reading glasses where you pick them up to try them on to see if they work, all without an optical prescription, would be sale / supply / provision of spectacles, before possibly having a formal sight test and resulting 'optical prescription', which would then be 'dispensing of spectacles'.  

The consensus among our pharmacists is that "dispense" is a term associated with a certain legal framework. Their responses were near identical to the UK.

Provision - is the general action of supplying for use. So I'd say Supply/Provision/Provide and maybe even "issue" are essentially synonymous.
* I say "issue" because in the lab, we would "issue" blood products.

Dispense (is a type of supply) but, with additional legal requirements/associations - prescriptions/recording/labeling/advice/etc...

The words are effectively all the same, but I suspect each country uses a specific word in legislation etc. that becomes a little more "loaded".