EAHP represents over 30,000 hospital pharmacists across 37 member countries. EAHP represents and develops the hospital pharmacy profession within Europe in order to ensure the continuous improvement of care and outcomes for patients in the hospital setting. This is achieved through science, research, education, practice, as well as sharing best-practice and responsibility with other healthcare professional
The EAHP Board, elected for three-year terms, oversees the association’s activities. Comprising directors responsible for core functions, it meets regularly to implement strategic goals. Supported by EAHP staff, the Board controls finances, coordinates congress organization, and ensures compliance with statutes and codes of conduct.
The EAHP staff supports the Board in executing EAHP’s mission. The Staff assists in financial management, events organisations, policy activities and all EAHP projects. The EAHP staff works closely with EAHP’s members and ensures the effective communication all relevant stakeholders.
The first member countries were Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, the Federal Republic, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands in 1972. EAHP has now 36 EAHP members and 2 Associate Members. EAHP is open to countries members of the Council of Europe and since 2022 to organisations representing the interests of hospital pharmacists from outside the Council of Europe (Associate Membership)
EAHP’s structure is also composed by different standing committes: EAHP Scientific Committee, EAHP Education Executive Committee and the EAHP CTF Steering Committee.
At EAHP, we are committed to transparency in our governance, ethical standards, and funding practices. This section provides open access to our foundational documents, including the EAHP Statutes, Code of Conduct, and Funding Sources. By sharing these resources, we aim to uphold accountability and foster trust with our members, partners, and the public.
Keep up with all EAHP’s events and webinars. Contact the team at info@eahp.eu should you have any questions about upcoming events or activities.
Here you can find all upcoming events organised by EAHP and by all its members and associate members. Do not hesitate to contact the events team at events@eahp.eu should you have any questions about the organisation of these events.
Hospital pharmacists conduct a critical role in the care of patients in hospitals. Learn more about what they do here and in all the pages under Hospital Pharmacy practice and Policy.
Self-Assessment
SILCC
Closed SIGs
EAHP brings together experts from many areas of hospital pharmacy practice providing and highlighting good local sustainable practices as that can be up-scaled and shared with other countries. The EAHP Working Group on Sustainability has the aim of reducing the environmental burden of the hospital pharmacy services.
The European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP), and its 36 member country platforms are creating a Common Training Framework for the hospital pharmacy education in Europe. The goal of this project is to allow the free movement of hospital pharmacists within the European Union.
The European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) and the European Society of Clinical Pharmacy (ESCP) have collaboratively developed the Oath to Society. The Oath to Society is all encompassing and acts as a contract for excellence in providing compassionate patient care, working as part of the healthcare team and advancing the pharmacy profession, and showcasing how clinical and hospital pharmacists work every day
A day created to highlight the importance and to celebrate the work done by hospital pharmacies. This day celebrates all hospital pharmacy teams.
Catch up with EAHP’s press releases
Find all EAHP relevant publication like the EAHP Surveys, annual reports and the history books.
The European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy (EJHP) is the only official journal of the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) and is committed to advancing the science, practice and profession of hospital pharmacy. As the premier communication platform for hospital pharmacists worldwide, EJHP is a major source for continuing education as well as updates on advances in the practice and standard of pharmaceutical care for patients.
When EAHP and Hospital pharmacists appear in the news.
EAHP publishes a monthly EU monitor with updates about the latest EAHP initiatives and information relevant for the hospital pharmacy profession.
Sponsor Channel
The Sponsor Channel is designed to maximise visibility and engagement, allowing sponsors to connect with the hospital pharmacy community and partners in a dynamic and interactive environment. From product demonstrations to networking sessions, the Sponsor Channel offers a range of opportunities for sponsors to showcase their offerings and generate leads in the new EAHP Website.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
JUDIT PERALES PASCUAL, ANA PÉREZ LÓPEZ, HERMINIA NAVARRO AZNAREZ, ELENA HERRANZ BAYO, MARIA PEREZ MORENO, CARLOS-IGNACIO DIAZ CALDERON HORCADA, Mª REYES ABAD SAZATORNIL
In 2019 the UPEX attended a large volume of patients without a scheduled appointment, long waits were generated and the pharmacotherapeutic follow-up was complicated. The purpose was to implement an appointment management module to avoid crowds, excessive waiting times, allowing better organizational management of care and knowledge of patients in each type of consultation.
An outpatient is a patient who goes to the outpatient unit of their Hospital Pharmacy Service to collect a drug for hospital use/diagnosis or foreign drug (it will be administered without health personnel intervention).
An appointment management system was implemented in accordance with the objectives of the SAMPA project (Service for Registration and Promotion of Adherence to Medicines for Elderly Patients), included in the European STOPandGo project.
Creating a cross-cutting system for the entire clinical circuit from prescription to dispensing involved a great deal computer involvement. Although it began to be used in November 2018, it was not used by the mostly part of prescribing doctors until the end of 2020.
Now, when the patient leaves medical consultation, he/she will go to the pharmacy and will be seen by a pharmacist. Besides, the program will propose a return appointment when it calculates that the patient has a week’s worth of medication, thus preventing the patient from running out of medication. The pharmacist will decide if the patient needs pharmacotherapeutic follow-up.
In 2019, 5 services cited patients while in 2020 it was 14; the percentage of patients attending pharmacy cited increased from 73.2%(2019) to 79.4%(2020).
Currently, the pharmacist knows in advance which scheduled patients he has and can establish a better organizational care management and determine in advance if the patient needs a close pharmacotherapeutic follow-up. Additionally, with this system an average waiting time of 03:55min was achieved (in 2019 appointments with waits >30min were recorded).
The implementation of the appointment management system has made possible to achieve better organizational management of care,avoid crowds,excessive waiting times, and provide better patient care and pharmacotherapeutic follow-up. The proposed solution can be extended to other hospitals.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Martina Jeske, Jasmin Stoll, Vanessa Funder, Sabine Bischinger
Due to the limited number of ports, it is necessary to administer several drug solutions via the same access. Incompatibility reactions can occur and may lead to a reduction or loss of drug efficacy and severe damage to the patient’s health. The objective was to create standardized administration protocols for central venous catheters and verify parenterally administered drugs’ incompatibility reactions. A further purpose was to build multidisciplinary cooperation to improve the drug administration processes.
To optimize the drug therapy at four intensive care units (ICUs) of the University Hospital, the pharmacy department, physicians, and care management, jointly implemented a quality assurance project. In multidisciplinary teams, we had to overcome various challenges in different wards to develop standards regarding administering drugs via multi-lumen catheters. We analyzed all frequently used drugs (n=72) for their compatibility and summarized findings in a crosstable.
The current situation was recorded using a questionnaire and collecting individual cases of protocols for central vein catheters. About 2000 drug-drug-combinations were analyzed using three databases, KiK 5.1, Micromedex, Stabilis 4.0, corresponding specialist information, and manufacturer data. Nevertheless, the compatibility check based on the databases is subject to some restrictions. In several cases, the databases give different or contradictory results, and compatibility data are rarely available for some combinations. The project revealed that although infusion therapy is standardized in intensive care units, there are fewer standards regarding administering drugs via multi-lumen catheters. There are significant differences between theory and practice in terms of handling infusion therapy.
Different hazardous practices got identified and eradicated. The incompatibility table allows a quick assessment. The advantages/disadvantages of varying software systems were broadly discussed. KiK 5.1 was implemented in the ICUs, Micromedex in the pharmacy department. The team agreed that existing uncertainties must be decided jointly. Different practices in different wards may pose a threat to patient safety. The results were presented in a clinic-wide interdisciplinary training.
The awareness towards the need for cooperation and hospital pharmacists’ competence concerning incompatibility reactions strongly increased, leading to more standardization in the infusion therapy and avoiding incompatible drug combinations. The aim is to initiate a continuous improvement process.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
Bernie Love, Tracy McFadden, Patrick Martin, Val Connolly, Deirdre Brennan, Michelle Griffin, Danielle Bracken, Siobhan Maguire, James Carr
Avoidable harm caused by medication is one of the most commonly reported adverse events in healthcare settings.
Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown launched a formal Medication Safety Programme in November 2017 by appointing a Medication Safety Facilitator and establishing a multidisciplinary Medication Safety Committee to promote and support the safe use of medications. The Medication Safety Committee undertook a number of activities to establish the programme in the hospital.
-An evidence-based literature review to define and guide the scope, breadth and direction of the programme. -A baseline in-depth analysis of locally reported medication incidents (2016/2017) on the National Incident Management System (NIMS) was conducted to identify initial targets for improvement. Analysis was undertaken using NCC-MERP, a recognised and validated tool used specifically for medication incidents. -An annual work-plan, incorporating necessary elements of a medication safety programme, was devised by the committee defining goals for the year.
Safety Culture: • Prominent commitment from hospital management to medication safety. • Investigations into medication errors aligned to a just and fair systems approach. • Promotion and encouragement of medication safety reporting and learning with a Medication Safety Awareness Day. • Implementation of the ‘Know, Check, Ask’ campaign to enhance medication safety by empowering patients. Governance: • Organogram updated to reflect reporting relationship of new committee. • Medication Safety made standing item at Quality & Safety Executive meetings. • Annual report submitted to Hospital Executive Committee Measurement & Monitoring of medication incidents: • Quarterly report produced and disseminated to front-line staff tracking and trending medication incidents including narratives. • Performance indicators established for: -No. of incidents reported (2018 reporting increased by 32% over 2017); -Reporter of incidents; -Category of harm; -Stage of medication use process where incidents have occurred. Education & Training: • Regular face-to-face education sessions arranged with front-line staff. • Quarterly medication safety bulletin devised and disseminated, informed by audit findings and incident reports. • The successful Medication Safety Minute initiative from St James’s Hospital was adopted and implemented, with content informed by local incidents. Development, Updating and Dissemination of PPPGs. • New IV drug administration guides (n=53) developed and updated. • Introduction of one-page ‘Medicines Information Sheet’ as quick reference guides for key topics. • DOAC prescription and administration guide developed and circulated. Audit: • Audit programme established informed by incident analysis, complaints and best-practice including introduction of an ‘audit window’ to gather hospital-wide data. Quality Improvement: • Informed by incident analysis, best-practice and audit findings, a number of moderate-high leverage quality improvement projects were initiated including removal of concentrated potassium from general clinical areas, introduction of an insulin & glucose monitoring record and introduction of an automated dispensing cabinet for out-of-hours access to medication.
The structural aspects established for the Medication Safety Programme have been successful in establishing a programme in the hospital and are reproducible by other centres.
Work continues in Connolly Hospital to identify themes of incidents, audit of practice and implementation of quality improvement initiatives.
Patient Safety and Quality Assurance
The implementation of safe medication practices plays a key role to prevent medication errors (ME) in the hospital setting. High-alert medications (HAMs) are those that bear a heightened risk of causing significant patient harm when they are used in error. Institutions such as the Joint Commission requires that hospitals define institution-specific HAMs and implement good processes.
Our objective was to ensure safe medication hospital practices and to eliminate medication errors that may cause harm, which is a priority to achieve patient´s safety goals.
A program for identifying and handle high-alert medications in a terciary hospital has been implemented.
The project was carried out in different stages:
-First of all, it was consulted the updated list (published in 2012) by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices. Therefore, a total of 186 drugs were HAMs.
-The second step was identified them using auxiliary red colour labels to warn health professionals of their potential danger.
-Finally, we defined general and specific strategies to take up with HAMs. In general strategies, plant kits were reviewed to remove unnecessary stock and limiting access to HAMs. It was also standardized HAM handling practices. In this way, specific strategies focused on: methotrexate, insulin and heparin. Regarding methotrexate administered orally, it was distributed a fact sheet indicating rules to promote it proper administration. Regarding insulin, a working group was formed to determine the available presentations, reserving the insulin pen for diabetic debuts. For the unfractionated heparin, a procedure for standardized dilution of 5% heparin was performed being the 1% heparin restricted to certain services.
A total of 186 medications were identifyed as HAMs and different strategies to prevent ME with those was defined. The main objective we have accomplished is becoming aware of their potential danger in case of error.
In the near future, our main objetives are asses the long-term impact of the implemented strategies, monitor ME involving HAMs and reassess the current list of HAMs to promote a needed safety culture in the hospital setting.
Clinical Pharmacy Services
Guillaume Wabont, Jean-Philippe Hammelin, Guénaëlle Faure, Cathy Debruille, Kévin Raynaud, Pascale Guillain
Clinical pharmacists and nephrologists noticed a recurrence of rehospitalization of patients who recently underwent ileostomy because of prerenal acute kidney injury. Ileostomy tends to enhance dehydration, but in each case there was a drug that was exacerbating the phenomenon by inhibiting the RAAS. The digestive and urologic surgeons had no knowledge of such pathophysiology and iatrogenia, explaining why they continued to prescribe such drugs.
We elaborated an internal guideline for the treatment of high blood pressure (HBP) in patients with ileostomy. We decided to contraindicate to those patients the inhibitors of renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) such as angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEi), angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) or direct renin inhibitors (DRI); as well as the diuretics – even-though none of the summaries of the product characteristics (SmPC) of those drugs in question require such prohibition.
From now on, the drug(s) of the first line of treatment must be a beta-blocker and/or a calcic inhibitor. The drug(s) of the second line of treatment must be an alpha-blocker and/or an imidazoline-receptor agonist.
Therefore, we decided to set up a collective analysis of the situation with pharmacists, nephrologists and surgeons in digestive and urologic surgery, to understand the pathophysiology and to elaborate an internal guideline for HBP in patients with ileostomy.
The pharmacists first wrote a working paper retailing:
– the pathophysiology (water–electrolyte imbalance with ileostomy and deterioration under RAAS inhibitors or diuretic)
– the lack of information in the SmPC of the drugs in question
– an argued suggestion to contraindicate those drugs
– the therapeutic alternatives
Then we all met and exchanged views on the subject.
The guideline has been written in a collaborative and multi-disciplinary work. It applies to all the physicians and pharmacists of the hospital who have been informed of our approach and they have received a copy of it.
We will evaluate the respect of the guideline in our hospital as well as its impact in the lowering of the rehospitalization rate of patients who recently underwent ileostomy.
We will notify our national agency for medicines of our procedure because we think it should be a national standard.
Introductory Statements and Governance
Lars-Åke Söderlund, Marie Olsson Nerfeldt , Birgitta Elfsson
E. Celikkayalar, E. Suvikas-Peltonen, J. Palmgren
