IG2 – The road to e-hospital pharmacy – are we there yet?

Link to EAHP Statements

• Section 1 – Introductory Statements and Governance: Statement – 1.7
• Section 2 – Selection, Procurement and Distribution: Statement – 2.2
• Section 5 – Patient Safety and Quality Assurance: Statement – 5.5

ACPE UAN: 0475-0000-23-006-L04-P – A knowledge-based activity  

Abstract

The provision of healthcare services supported by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) – such as computers, mobile phones, and satellite communications – is known as eHealth. This same definition can be applied to pharmaceutical services provided in hospitals in order to speak about e-hospital pharmacy.

In 2017, EAHP developed the “EAHP Position Paper on eHealth and mHealth”, referring to electronic and mobile health, urging national governments and health systems across Europe to take action towards:

• systematic and EU-wide achievement of electronic prescribing, administration and use of electronic medical records;
• ensuring barcoding of medicines to the single units in primary packages to enable more widespread take up of bedside scanning in European hospitals, thus improving patient safety;
• appropriate regulatory oversight mechanisms for mHealth applications to ensure that they have a positive impact and adequately protect patient data;
• provision of appropriate eHealth/mHealth training opportunities to healthcare professionals and promotion of digital health literacy;
• and involvement of hospital pharmacists in the design, specification of parameters and evaluation of ICT within the medicines processes.

Six years have gone by and much has been achieved, but we are constantly facing innovation and changes in healthcare.

Now the horizon is broadening, and we hear more and more about Digital Health, a term that includes not only eHealth, but also developing areas such as the use of advanced computer sciences in fields such as “big data”, genomics and artificial intelligence. Learning how these advances are being applied in hospital pharmacy and what else is in the horizon will let us know if we are at the end of the road…or just at the beginning.

Learning objectives

After the session, participants should be able to:

• Describe advances in e-hospital pharmacy
• Recognise the importance of the role that hospital pharmacists have in this area
• Understand how Digital Health can be applied to hospital pharmacy

Educational need addressed

Due to the rapid advance of eHealth technologies used within the medicines processes, hospital pharmacists are required to keep their competencies updated and receive necessary training.

Keywords: eHealth, e-hospital pharmacy, digital health